Infy bids adieu to Nandan today

Infy bids adieu to Nandan today

28-yr Association With Firm Ends

TIMES NEWS NETWORK


Bangalore: Infosys will be bidding farewell on Thursday to one of its founding legends. Nandan Nilekani who set up the company together with N R Narayana Murthy and five others 28 years ago, is leaving — as reported earlier — to head the Central government’s project to provide unique ID cards to all Indians.
It will be a quiet affair, “as per Nandan’s wishes”, a company spokesperson said about the plans for Thursday. An hour-long event, to which all Infocians have been invited, has been planned to begin at 5 pm at the amphitheatre in Infosys’ Electronics City campus in Bangalore. All the
founders and board of directors are expected to be present. And all
of them are
likely to speak a few words about Nilekani.
A couple of young Infocians, who have interacted closely with Nilekani, are also scheduled to speak. Nilekani will then make a final address. The whole programme will be webcast on the company intranet for the benefit of employees who cannot be present at the venue.
The company spokesperson said through the last week Nilekani had kept an open door for any employee who wanted to talk to him. “And there was a regular stream of employees going into his room,” she said.
Infosys is scheduled to announce its first quarter results on Friday, and a board meeting will precede that. But Nilekani, for the first time in almost three decades, will not be part of it.
While Infosys as a company is well-prepared to handle Nilekani stepping out to don a public profile, without doubt his presence will be missed. He was after all one of the most visible faces of Tech India, leave alone Infosys. Even after ceding executive responsibilities two years ago and not attending post earnings news conferences, he’s been among the more visible faces of the company in the public arena. His mentor, Narayana Murthy is expected to become a lot more visible in the coming weeks as Infosys readies the next tier of leaders to don a higher public profile.