The discretion of an unknown teacher changed the life of Senapathy “Call me Kris” Gopalakrishnan. Just two more marks and he would have become a doctor. Instead, Gopalakrishnan ended up in a boardroom and is today the CEO and MD of Infosys.
His parents’ wish was that he study medicine as there were no doctors in their extended family. “In spite of being a fairly good student, I failed to get admission in the government medical college by two marks. The number of colleges and seats were very limited then and the family couldn’t afford a paid-for medical seat,” says Gopalakrishnan.
At the helm: Kris Gopalakrishnan took over the reins of the company at a difficult time, and his views on the growth of Infosys and the economy are cautious but optimistic. Jayachandran / Mint
But medicine’s loss has been a definite gain for information technology.
Unlike his charismatic book-writing predecessor Nandan Nilekani, Gopalakrishnan is quieter, and weighs his words carefully. I have known Kris for nearly a decade—meeting usually during the monotonous quarterly results season, when the company’s numbers set the tone for expectations from the sector. Only twice have I witnessed a rather forceful expression of opinion from the soft-spoken, lean, silver-haired and unpretentious 53-year-old. On both occasions, the issue was the IT industry and its role.
When we meet over lunch in the company’s executive dining room in Bangalore, usually reserved for meetings with customers or key employees, Gopalakrishnan is his usual cheerful self.
As the immaculately trained staff serves us soup and croissants, Gopalakrishnan reminisces about his childhood. “My father came from a lower middle-class background and poor financial circumstances forced him to abandon studies at 18. He started a small plumbing business. But he was very keen that both his children get the opportunity to study, a chance denied to him. Like most middle-class families, the emphasis was on education as a passport to growth in life.”
Since Kris had a passion for physics, he decided to get a bachelor’s and then master’s degree in physics from the Indian Institute of Technology. At that time, in 1977, IIT Madras had one of the few mainframe computers in Asia. “I got interested in that and started learning Fortran (a programming language).” Not surprisingly, Gopalakrishnan stayed on and did a master’s in computer science too.
After campus interviews, despite offers from “a few others, including the Tatas”, Gopalakrishnan got on board the little known Patni Computer Systems. “The role you can play and what you can learn in a small company is significant,” he says, explaining his choice.