In the sphere of the Indian technology industry, there are few who are as well known as Senapathy ‘Kris’ Gopalakrishnan, the co-founder of Infosys. According to the Hurun India Rich List 2024, Gopalakrishnan has overtaken his fellow co-founder N Narayana Murthy in terms of wealth with total net worth of Rs 38,500 crore. Gopalakrishnan ranks fourth among the richest persons in Bengaluru and Murthy ranks fifth with total wealth of Rs 36,600 crore.
Gopalakrishnan, popularly known as ‘Kris’ was born in 1955 and has worked for more than forty years. He was one of the six people who started the Infosys company, together with Murthy, K Dinesh, Nandan Nilekani, NS Raghavan and SD Shibulal.
In the initial stages of Infosys, Gopalakrishnan had the major responsibility for handling the technical side and customer servicing of the company that formed the basis of the company’s growth in the later years.
There were some key events in Gopalakrishnan’s career with Infosys. After his stay in the US and then coming back to India in 1994, he assumed major positions including the deputy managing director in the same year.
He became the CEO and the Managing Director of the Infosys in 2004 after Nandan Nilekani stepped down from the position that he had been holding since the year 1994 to 2000 and again from 2002 to 2004. He then stepped up to the position of the Vice Chairman of the company and held the position up to 2014.
However, apart from his corporate success story, Gopalakrishnan is also a charitable person. He started the Pratiksha Trust with his wife Sudha for the research in the field of brain.
Education is something he takes seriously, and this is evident by his appointment to the Board of Governors of IIT-Madras and the Chairman of the Board of Governors of IIT-Bangalore. He also is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Chennai Mathematical Institute.
The educational qualifications of Gopalakrishnan are also not less than any other professional candidate. He has Master’s Degrees in physics and computer science from the Indian Institute of Technology, Chennai. Notably, his journey to the world of technology tycoons was not predetermined; he had wanted to be a doctor. However, due to the failure in getting admission in government medical college by two marks, he preferred to go for technology.
Currently, Gopalakrishnan is the Chairman of Axilor Ventures which is a start-up incubator that has invested in several start-ups including; EnKash, GoodHome and Kaagaz.
