Bangalore, Aug 19 (IANS) India’s iconic figure N.R. Narayana Murthy Friday bid farewell to Infosys Ltd, the country’s second largest IT bellwether that he co-founded over three decades ago, as chairman and chief mentor on superannuation.


Though Murthy’s term ends formally Aug 21, he has decided to bid adieu to ‘his grown up baby’ and its thousands of employees Friday as his 65th birthday falls Sunday.

Renowned banker K.V. Kamath will succeed Murthy Aug 22 as the first non-founder chairman of the $6.1-billion global software major following his appointment April 30 to the top executive post.

Murthy will, however, continue to associate with the company as chairman emeritus for life.

Other co-founders, including newly-appointed co-chairman S. Gopalakrishnan, chief executive S.D. Shibulal, N.S. Raghavan and K. Dinesh joined about 10,000 employees in giving a standing ovation to an emotional Murthy, flanked by his illustrious wife Sudha Murthy, son Rohan, daughter-in-law Lakshmi, daughter Akshata and son-in-law Rishi in the company’s sprawling campus.

The absence of another co-founder and former vice-chairman Nandan Nilekani, currently chairman of the state-run Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) or Aadhar was conspicuous as he was away in New Delhi and could not make it due to pressing engagements.

Former directors T.V. Mohandas Pai and Phaneesh Murthy several bigwigs from the IT sector, state government and friends and relatives of the Murthys were present, many of them with families.

Led by Raghavan, speaker after speaker lauded Murthy’s extraordinary achievements and contributions in making Infosys a global brand and putting Bangalore and India on the global IT map in a span of two decades, riding on othe outsourcing boom.

Murthy co-founded Infosys in 1981 along with six other co-founders at Pune with just Rs.10,000 by raising the seed capital by mortgaging his wife’s gold jewellery.

After serving as chief executive till 2002 and handing over the baton to Nilekani, Murthy continued as executive chairman till 2006 and became chief mentor in 2007, creating enormous wealth to thousands of investors and millionaire employees, besides making Infosys the first Indian firm to be listed on the New York-based Nasdaq in 1999.