Narayana Murthy was born into a Kannada- Madhwa Brahmin family on 20 August 1946 in Sidlaghatta, Chikkaballapura district Karnataka. After completing his school education, he went to the National Institute of Engineering and graduated in 1967 with a degree in Electrical Engineering. In 1969 he received his master's degree from the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur.
Murthy and six software professionals founded Infosys in 1981 with an initial capital injection of Rs 10,000, which was provided by his wife Sudha Murthy. Murthy served as the CEO of Infosys for 21 years from 1981 to 2002 and was succeeded by co-founder Nandan Nilekani. At Infosys he articulated, designed and implemented the Global Delivery Model for IT services outsourcing from India. He was chairman of the board from 2002 to 2006, after which he became Chairman of the board and Chief Mentor. In August 2011, he retired from the company, taking the title chairman Emeritus.
Murthy serves as an independent Director on the corporate board of HSBC and has served as a Director on the boards of DBS Bank, Unilever, ICICI and NDTV. He also serves as a member of the advisory boards and councils of several educational and philanthropic institutions, including Cornell University, INSEAD, ESSEC, Ford Foundation, the UN Foundation, the Indo-British Partnership, Asian Institute of Management, a trustee of the Infosys Prize, a trustee of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, and as a trustee of the Rhodes Trust. He is also Chairman of the Governing board of Public Health Foundation of India. He serves on the Asia Pacific Advisory Board of British Telecommunications. In 2005 he co-chaired the World Economic Forum in Davos.
His wife, Sudha Murthy, is a social worker and author. She does philanthropic work through the Infosys Foundation. He has two children, a son Rohan Murty and a daughter Akshata Murthy. On 1 June 2013, Rohan joined Infosys as an executive assistant to his Father. He left Infosys effective 14 June 2014. Akshata is married to Rishi Sunak a British Conservative MP.
