Phaneesh Murthy Infosys iGATE Cheer amidst Challenges

Over two decades ago, it was this writer (the PR for Quintant/ iGATE for over a decade) who woke up Phaneesh Murthy at 3am US time with a call to alert him about the court case and a presser announced by Infosys the next day following his exit. That night he was unfazed on being told about the upcoming event and has always been cheerful in his conversations and positive in his outlook to life. He has had multiple setbacks in his life each of which coming at a time when he was at his prime in his corporate career. At Infosys, he was the 'Golden Boy' and a favourite of Narayana Murthy having taken the company global and was the one instrumental in building the Infy Brand. At the turn of the century, he was touted to become the next CEO but he had to face a sudden exit. He took over as the CEO when iGATE was in a mess and achieved his revenue target of $1billion. But at both these companies he had to face exits at inopportune times. This writer had worked very closely with Phaneesh for well over a decade and was surprised with the positivity he brought to himself and to those around him even at a time when most others would have been crestfallen. So was he shaken by the turn of events in his life and how did he handle all the challenges in his life and how has he continued to remain so positive about life despite all that it has handed him. Phaneesh Murthy looks back at his life in a long conversation with this writer on this last day of May.

This story follows the one written on Phaneesh in January this year.

Phaneesh was on a roll and a glorious growth path beckoned him at Infosys when he exited the firm. So was he rattled in that phase and how did he manage to come out of the shock “It is difficult to say that I was not rattled. The news came as a huge shock to me.  I was quite rattled,really.  But I had the inner strength to face it for I knew that what someone was accusing me of was completely false. When you have that confidence that you are intrinsically good and you know injustice has been done, you will be able to make a strong comeback. You can feel outraged as you knew a lie was being spread around but I had an inner calm. There were many who stood by me in that phase including the family and friends. While I appreciated all of that and it meant a lot at that time, finally the strength had to come from within. Without that inner strength, I could not have survived”, he told this writer as the clock ticked past 10pm.

He says that he is an eternal optimist. "When you are falling off the 60th floor and 59 floors have passed, I still say ‘so far so good’. In the 1990s, I worked as hard as anyone in the company. My belief is that hard work and smart work will pay off in life. That is the belief I have grown up with.”

To start off a new business in that scenario of what was happening around him was very demanding. To put that behind and to go forward with confidence needs great strength. Phaneesh always saw what was ahead "I perpetually live in the future. You think of what can be and not what could have been. Yes, the Infy exit was disappointing but I have not spent time and energy pondering over it in the last two decades or so.”

He would have been on top of the World had he become the CEO of Infosys and could have been there for many years but Phaneesh says that iGATE was an altogether different experience and something that he enjoyed greatly “When I came in as the CEO, iGATE was in a mess on all fronts - organisation, markets and the services. There had been multiple CEOs in the previous years and I was shocked to see that most of the employees believed that I too would be another one in that list of outgoing CEOs.”

“Solving a mess is an Engineer’s and a Business Man’s dream. iGATE was an enriching experience and very high in terms of learning. While I had a fantastic time at Infy in the 1990s, iGATE was even better for I played a transformational role and turned around the company far beyond anyone’s expectations” says Phaneesh.

He has a profound view on where life takes you “Somethings go your way and some don’t. You strike some deals by sheer luck. At iGATE, I wanted to buy Satyam but that didn’t go my way. My core strength was marketing and customers but this was all legal (with all the problems there) and I was unprepared for it. When I pitched for Patni much later, I was much better prepared.”

How much did the negative noise from some of the senior management folks at Infy impact him in that early phase soon after his exit. It must have been tough to hear not so sweet words from those with whom he had worked closely over the previous years “The reality is I cannot control others – both what they think about me and what they say about me. I simply moved on in that phase and made peace with myself. I have always reminded myself of the famous saying in the Christian Wedding – 'Speak Now or hold that forever'. I have never had regrets at the way it was handled at Infosys and have never looked back with the slightest tinge of negativity at any point of time over the last two decades.”

But how were the initial months after the exit from Infosys after having been the blue eyed boy of Narayana Murthy “I was in shock at that time for it was the first time I had to encounter such a case. And I knew there was no truth to it. For them too, it was probably the first time they had faced such a scenario. We were not in a good decision-making mindset at that time. I was down for 3-4 months, but I also realised that everything in life is within a context. The clients respect you for the value proposition and the employees respect you for the growth opportunities you provide them. If you remove the context, you will see how differently they behave. What did hurt me a lot in that phase was the fact that all those who used to come home in the US and have dinner and understood me well were comfortable with the decision taken (by the company) at that time. Most of them said that they had no options but I believed that there could have been different outcomes.”

“I was the same guy when I was at the MES college in Bangalore but when I moved to IIT Madras, many more became my friends. And even more after I joined IIM A. They suddenly believed that I could solve World’s hunger and poverty!!! Without that label, I would have been the same person but people see it very differently.”

So what was this new thing about iTOPS that he wanted to create at iGATE having pitched for a decade with the customers of Infy with the rate per hour and bums on seat model. How did his view change so suddenly that throughout the stint at iGATE, it was all about the Output based model “In my mind, right from the beginning and forever, I worked hard to create a differentiator. It was the reason why I insisted on building a brand at Infosys. The iTOPS differentiator was a natural evolution of my ongoing interactions with customers. Many of the things they liked at Infy but the one thing they didn’t and that was often brought out in my conversations was the fact that the company put juniors on the job, they took longer to do the job. These conversations led me to thinking about a solution.”

“When you go to a car mechanic, would you be happy if he said he would charge a per hour fee to identify the problem and then a per hour rate to find the solution or would you want to know the approximate cost for getting the car back on its wheels. Why is it that in an organisation alone there isn’t a change possible. I wanted to show that organisations need to change and that they need to charge for outcome and not just the efforts.”

Phaneesh is happy and grateful that the other Murthy opened his eyes to a tweaking of this model and approach “Narayana Murthy met me in 2004 as he was curious to know about the iTOPS model that everyone was talking about at that time. He said there was so much noise around it. After listening to me, he asked me to simplify it. He told me that I was falling into a typical trap that the smartest people get into. The fact that you understand this concept does not necessarily mean that everyone else will, as easily as you. And don't assume that they will be as passionate as you are.”

Phaneesh did simplify his description of iTOPS and in the coming years was able to convince people that this was a model that would gain acceptance globally with the customers over a period of time "Overall I think it had become successful and a lot of what is done now is based on the output model. I tell the entrepreneurs of the companies that I am mentoring and consulting with that once they become passionate about a model, they should put all their efforts in that direction to make it successful. If I had continued at Infosys, it is likely I would have pitched that there as well.”

After clearing the initial mess and having gained the confidence of the Board and his team members, Phaneesh Murthy had set his sights high on the $1billion revenue for iGATE. He achieved this with the acquisition of Patni, India’s oldest IT company. So what was next in sight for him at iGATE and did he expect to continue in that firm even as he turned 50!!! 

Infosys was a big shock for he was cut out in the middle of a glorious growth path. At iGATE, he had achieved a lot including taking it past the $1b mark.  But Phaneesh was moving into a new phase in life and though he did not see this coming, the iGATE exit did not impact him as much as the one over a decade earlier “I was older, at 50, and financially a lot more secure."

He knew inside him that his relationship with an iGATE staffer would backfire one day and would bounce back on him but he continued to see the positive side of it. And he paid the price for it. He wanted to start a new life at that point of time but it did not finally materialise. 

Interestingly, the two founders, Sunil Wadhwani and Ashok Trivedi, for whom he had created such wealth at iGATE, have reached out to Phaneesh this year with a request to revive Mastek, a staffing firm that had been hived off from iGATE in 2008 and that is now in the same mess as iGATE had been in 2003-04. “What you did for us at iGATE two decades, we would like you do for Mastek”, the founders told Phaneesh. 

This was yet another example, Phaneesh points out, of context in life. The same founders that wanted to see Phaneesh out were seeking his professional help again, almost forgetting the five minute meeting they had in the Board room!!! 

Phaneesh is one who does not carry too much to heart and has accepted the offer and is now playing the role of consultant to Mastek in an effort to revive the firm that is absolutely low on revenue.

Within two weeks of his iGATE exit, he revived Primentor, a consulting firm that he had founded after his Infy exit. In a month, he bagged his first client. There were multiple offers for the CEO role both from private and listed companies but it was a phase he wanted to reconnect with his two sons“For long, travel on work had come in the way of my relationship with my two kids and I did not spend enough time with them when they were growing up. I wanted to reconnect and better my relationship with them. Over the last decade, I have been able to do that and am at my closest with them now.”

The elder son is in an engineer role in a hot growing company while the younger one is an entrepreneur in the US. Would Phaneesh charge his son consulting for him. He is all smiles and says that he is delighted that his son has taken to entrepreneurship and is finding his feet in the corporate world.

Phaneesh turned 60 year last year. So what’s in store this decade given that he does not want to be engaged in a full time role in a company as a CEO “I want to achieve as much as possible for humanity. I insist with the entrepreneurs that I consult with that the top 20 people should be given stocks that would make them millionaires and that 4-5% of the profits should go towards a charity of their choice.”

Phaneesh is not a big cricket buff but on the eve of the Indo Pak World Cup match he is organising a Charity Dinner with legends Zaheer Abbas and Sunil Gavaskar in New York. The funds raised there would go towards heart surgeries for kids (in India) with holes in their heart.

Phaneesh does not visit temples for he believes that God resides within. He says that the superior being is within and you need to connect with that inner self.  For decades, Phaneesh has been into at least one event every year that is out of his comfort zone. Bungee Jumping and Sky Jumping have probably given him a fearlessness to face all the challenges in life.

For all his inner strength and the way he has handled the challenges, did he ever crumble under the corporate pressure. His mind goes to a period just before his Infy exit “Following 9/11, there was a meltdown in the telecom sector. Telecom was a big segment for Infy. The markets were collapsing in front of my eyes and I just felt helpless. I was shaken out of bounds for I realised how quickly the world and the markets could change. The company had grown exponentially and for the first time in that phase it was registering slower growth. Customers had hit a wall.”

Phaneesh's exit soon after meant he could not see them through that phase.

The global financial crisis in 2008 was another phase that challenged him big time as a leader. iGATE had revived and was on a growth path when the global crisis hit the markets “I worked doubly hard for half the revenues. It was a crazy year at work and it showed the kind of unexpected things life could throw at you all of a sudden stumping all your great corporate strategies and five year plans.”

These were the only two events that caused a bit of stress but even these he says he handled with positivity “I had slogged both at Infosys and iGATE for I have enjoyed the challenges that life throws at you. Hard work and Smart work always bring results. ”

After over three decades, Phaneesh separated from his wife last year but he says they remain the best of friends. 

Its well past 11pm in the night and his 10 year old daughter (through the former iGATE staffer - that relationship did not go through) is fast asleep by his side. Phaneesh has got into an informal understanding that the daughter would be with him for a certain period every month and he enjoys her company a great deal. 

It is a phase when he is having his best engagement with his three kids. And that is currently providing him with the greatest joy.