7. Nandan Nilekani: From Flat World to Imagining Unique India
One man who ran Karnik close to being Indian IT's “Man of the Decade” is the chairman of the Unique ID (UID) Authority of India set up under the aegis of the Planning Commission and the former CEO and co-founder of Infosys, Nandan Nilekani. It was in March 2002 that he took over as Infosys CEO from the iconic Narayana Murthy and presided over some unique milestones for the company. Overseeing Infy's biggest ever acquisition (Australian telecom services vendor Expert) in 2003, touching the billion dollar topline mark in 2004, then subsequently $2bn and $3bn in 2006 and 2007...., expanding its global delivery model across newer geographies-Nilekani could take credit for many of Infy achievements during the decade.
On a more strategic level, if Narayana Murthy could be credited for leading the entrepreneur-founder in the 90s to lay the foundation for a scalable Infosys, Nilekani led Infosys 2.0 during the noughties in grooming the next-gen leaders, empowering them and creating career plans for them till he handed over reins to Kris Gopalakrishnan in 2007. He devised the theory of organizational longevity that focused on creating a set of leaders such that “collectively they were capable and individually they were more capable in some of the things.” (reinstating the Infosys principle of the sum being more equal than the parts). Another leadership trait in Nilekani that shone through the decade was his ability to connect dots at various levels and then correlating it to present the big picture along with a strategy to match. Nothing illustrates better throughout the decade than his obsession with creating the longevity of the corporation-going beyond generations of leaders-while continuing to thrive, prosper and retain its value and culture, the basic DNA.
But it would be demeaning to Nilekani to restrict his contribution only to the growth of his own company. As one of the global faces of Indian IT, he has performed stellar role for associations like Nasscom and TiE (he founded the Bangalore chapter); in fact nothing could illustrate his global image better than when Tom Friedman acknowledged him to be the inspiration and the face behind The World is Flat (arguably the business book of the decade). Accolades like Forbes “Businessman of the Year” for Asia (2006), Fortune “Businessman of the Year” for Asia (2003) as well as being one of the youngest entrepreneurs to joing Global Top 20 leaders on the World Economic Forum Foundation in 2006 further enhanced his image as India's face on the global business map. In 2009, he was placed in the Time 100 list of “World's Most Influential People”. The icing on the cake was the Padma Bhushan in 2006.
But again, it would be erroneous to judge Nilekani only as a business champion. After all this is one man who admits that he has been unusually lucky to achieve so much success. While his personal aspirations are fulfilled, his larger public goal is to contribute in whatever way he can to help India take advantage of this “historical opportunity. “India is unusually placed to do well in terms of outsourcing, demographics and the global economy. This is something that comes to a country once in a millennium.” (from his 2009 book Imagining India) And in 2009, he walked the talk by quitting his plum position in Infosys to become the chairperson of the unique ID authority at Manmohan Singh's behest where he enjoys the rank of a Cabinet Minister. The UID program will provide an identity card/number to every citizen like the Social Security system in US and Europe; to lead a project of such magnitude it's almost impossible India could have found anyone else.