Company boards need people who think like founders: Nandan Nilekani

Five years ago, Nandan Nilekani returned to the Infosys fold which he left in 2009 to run the Unique Identification Authority of India and had said he would never return. When he returned to the company’s fold in 2017, he said that he will stay for as long as he is needed.

At that time, the company’s former and first non-founder CEO Vishal Sikka, who had been at the helm for three years, had resigned after months of acrimony with the company’s founders.

In an interview to Moneycontrol's Chandra R Srikanth, Nilekani maintains that he will stay for as long as he is needed, but added that he is not going anywhere.

“When I came back, it was a slightly complicated situation. But I think we have got past that, we have put things back on stage, we are a very stable company, very stable CEO, very unified board which is supportive of the management, the management is very client focused. I think we've got everything in place. I think we should continue this model,” he said.

When asked if it helps to have a founder or promoter with skin in the game, Nilekani said a founder brings some advantages.

“One is what you can call founder clout. If you have to know the company in a particular direction, direction, the founder has the clout to pull it off. If you have to take the company in a particular direction, the founder has the clout to pull it off because he has that credibility. I think I was able to use some of that founder clout to get some things done,” he said.

Having a founder also brings stability and long-term nature, he said, as founders have that since they look at the legacy they are leaving behind.

“It doesn't mean that non-founders don't have that. There are many successful companies in the world that are run without founders, and they've been around for hundreds of years. I think it's very important, therefore, when founders transition that the board, while it may not have founders, it needs people who think like founders.”

Commenting on the slowdown in the IT industry, Nilekani said that it’s logical that there may be some impact since it’s a B2B business, but within that, there are opportunities to increase market share.

“Companies that are much better organized, much more competitive, much more customer focused, will have much more relevant services to offer, they will do well,” he said, adding that the trend of digital acceleration is not going away.

“There may be ups and downs because of economics, the secular trend in the increasing the digital intensity of companies and governments around the world is going to continue and they will require companies to help do that. And you will find that India will play a huge role in that,” he said.

From a long-term perspective, despite there being some caution in the IT industry currently, the Infosys co-founder said the combination of India having the finest pool of talent in the world at scale and having the infrastructure to train these people at scale meant that India will continue to be relevant as a country to global digitization, which is accelerating. “That's why it's a sweet spot to be in.”

Watch the full interview here: