“There has to be a semblance of justice and fairness in your distributions system or else we are going to see the social conflict.”

Sridhar Vembu is an accomplished businessman, billionaire, and founder of Zoho, a multinational technology company that develops software and cloud-based business tools. Born in Tamil Nadu, in a modest Brahmin family, young Sridhar was schooled through IIT-Madras. Further, he completed his Electrical Engineering through Princeton University.

Although he initially started working as a wireless engineer in Qualcomm, he founded the software development company named AdventNet along with his brothers Kumar and Sekar, and friend Tony Thomas, which was renamed to be Zoho Corporation. The company boasts of not seeking external funds and respecting the privacy of its clients the most.

It also has an in-house Zoho University, which trains students with hands-on software skills, communication, and mathematical concepts to students who have passed Class 12. They claim their education to be different than conventional college-style education. The idea was generated after a survey was conducted among their employees to understand the utility of college education for current job. The concept of Zoho school was to prepare them for a real-life working environment.

“I spent time in rural India and so I was able to observe these things first hand. Then I realized for a lot of businesses technology is a critical cost and we don’t want to be a costly input to our customers, because then our customers cannot survive in business very long term if they have very costly inputs from us.”

As per the latest reports of 2022, his net worth is estimated to be USD 3.75 billion. He is married to Pramila Srinivisan, who is also a CEO and founder of a software company, and stays in the U.S. along with their son. He even funds a school in Tamil Nadu.

Although he has multiple achievements to boast about, Sridhar chooses to remain levelheaded and work towards achieving next objectives. He believes in a work culture that is stress-free. Today, Zoho’s business is valued at almost USD 1 billion and has branches across the world. Recently, he shifted to Tenkasi, Tamil Nadu for better health and experience better quality of life for him and his staff.

“I don’t get too excited about things… I don’t go to extremes vis-à-vis emotions about anything. I try to be moderate.”

Birth Score – 3/5
Pride Score – 4/5
An impressive 7/10 Notable Brahmin Score.

“Growing up, I dreamt of being economically independent because I always believed women should be so.”

An inspiration to the true sense, Sudha Murthy is an accomplished engineer, businesswoman, philanthropist, teacher, and author. Donning various hats, Murthy has proven her mettle and set a benchmark by venturing into nontraditional field of engineering, which was quite unusual for women during her times. She was born in a traditional Kannada Brahmin family to Dr. R.H. Kulkarni and Smt. Vimala Kulkarni.

Once when a job posted by TELCO mentioned that women candidates need not apply for the job, Murthy wrote a letter to JRD Tata challenging the policy. Surprisingly, JRD Tata took cognizance of this, and asked his staff to interview her and check her technical skills. This is how she ended up being the first technical officer at TELCO. Later, she went on to become a cofounder of the IT company Infosys, along with her husband Narayan Murthy. She had already followed unexplored paths by seeking admission in an engineering college, which was quite unusual, 50 years ago. She had no access to toilets or canteen facility.

“Doing what you like is freedom, liking what you do is happiness.”

Furthermore, Murthy is also involved in many philanthropy activities through Infosys Foundation. She primarily started by working for sex workers. Through her organization, she built approximately 16,000 toilets for girls across different projects. Besides, she started her writing career by writing tales about the real-life incidents of people whom she met during her social work. She writes women-centric, mythological, as well as fictional stories from audiences of all age groups. Her collection for kids has become quite popular too. She has been conferred with various awards including:

Indira Nooyi

“Understand the politics in the organization, but don’t play the politics of the organization.”

Indira Nooyi, a highly acclaimed Indian-born American businesswoman belongs to a Tamil Brahmin family. She is one among the few women CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, belonging to an ethnic background, to represent an American brand. In 2017, she was second in the Forbes list of most powerful businesswomen.

She rose to fame after her work at PepsiCo, Inc., a snack and beverages giant, for the company’s diversification in healthier foods and drinks. Her strategy of making the portfolio of the company well balanced rather than relying merely on its soft drinks product line gained her many accolades. She served as the CEO of the company between 2006 and 2018 and as a chairman from 2007 to 2019. Her success in corporate life has become an inspiration for many young women to reach for top management positions, which are still male-dominated.

Backed with her education in Chemistry from Madras Christian College and a masters from IIM, Calcutta; she moved to the U.S. to pursue an additional masters degree from the Yale School of Management. She credits much of success to Yale, where she learnt leadership qualities and how business and society can work together for the greater benefit. In 2016, as a gesture of gratitude, she contributed an undisclosed amount to the business school.

“I grew up with a mother who said, ‘I’ll arrange a marriage for you at 18,’ but she also said that we could achieve anything we put our minds to and encourage us to dream of becoming prime minister or president.”

While talking about her personal life, she disclosed that she grew up in a household where education and grades were given utmost importance. However, success was not overnight for her, revealing that she did face a lot of challenges, and admitted that women do not have it easy. A mother of two, currently she is a member of Board of Directors of Amazon, which has pushed up the percentage of women being represented in this industry.

According to Wallmine, as of 15 May 2021, the net worth of Indira Nooyi is approximately 16.4 million dollars. At the age of 64, she still continues her zeal for business with the same fervour.

 “Just because you are CEO, don’t think you have landed. You must continually increase your learning, the way you think, & the way you approach the organization. I’ve never forgotten that.”

Birth Score – 3/5

Pride Score – 4/5

An impressive 7/10 Notable Brahmin Score.

N Chandrasekaran 

Chief Executive Officer -

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS)

 

N Chandrasekaran or N Chandra as he is popularly known is a Tamil Brahmin (caste).

N Chandra was born in a typical Tam – Bram (Tamil Brahmin) family in small town Tamil Nadu in 1963. As a child, N Chandra was very studious and excelled in Mathematics.

His claim to fame begins with being appointed as one of the youngest CEOs in Tata Group – India’s largest business conglomerate. He undertook the responsibility of running India’s largest IT company and not only has he retained the numero uno position but also added value to TCS in all aspects – in employee count, revenue, earnings & market reach.

He also has the distinction of receiving honorary doctorates from several business institutions globally such as – JNTU Hyderabad, Nyenrode University Netherlands, etc. Some of the awards that N Chandra has received are – CNN – IBN Indian of the Year 2015, NDTV Business Leader of the Year, BT CEO of the Year, etc

As the CEO of TCS, he is ever smiling and ever ready to meet customers. Chandra’s leadership has redefined TCS to become a more customer centric organisation. His drive as a leader has also led to emergence of several new opportunities in the technology industry which makes TCS the market leader that it is today.

N Chandra is passionate about new technology (obviously) & books in the genres of fiction, politics & business. His other notable interest is that he is a marathon runner! Till date he has run over 8 marathons globally. No wonder TCS is one of the lead sponsors for many marathon events that happen globally. His interests also include photography and music.

He lives in Mumbai with his wife Lalitha & son Pranav.

Birth Score – 4/5

Pride Score – 4/5

An excellent beating 8/10 Notable Brahmin Score.

Satya Nadella

 

Chief Executive Officer – Microsoft Corporation

Satya Nadella is a Telugu Brahmin (caste).

He was born in Hyderabad in 1967. His father was an IAS Officer and was part of the National Planning Commission during 2004-09. Satya completed his Bachelors from India and followed it up with Masters in Computer Science from Milwaukee & MBA from University of Chicago.

Satya Nadella has been with Microsoft for over 20 years and been part of various cutting edge technologies including Online Services, Servers, Enterprise Databases, Cloud, etc. We believe his success at each of his appointed roles must have been outstanding. Which is why Microsoft Corporation promoted Satya to be its CEO in 2013 replacing Steve Ballmer.

Satya has his work cut out for him as Microsoft faces competition in Search, Mobile, Cloud & other emerging technologies. His recent initiative to make Windows mobile free of cost shows that Mobile is an area where Microsoft intends to be very aggressive in gaining market share.

Satya is married to Anupama and they have three kids. The Nadella family stays in Washington State, USA. In his personal life, Satya is known to be cricket fan. His success was celebrated in his village near Hyderabad.

Quite astonishingly Microsoft has had only 3 CEOs till date – Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer & now Satya Nadella. I am sure those are big boots that he has to fill in!

Birth Score – 4/5

Pride Score – 5/5

A world beating 9/10 Notable Brahmin Score.

N R Narayana Murthy

Founder of Infosys Ltd. Inspiration to Young India. Driven by Values.”

 

 

 

N.R. Narayana Murthy is a Kannada Madhwa Brahmin  (caste).

NRN as he is commonly known is the founder of Infosys Ltd, a $7 billion (2013) software company employing over 1,60,000 employees in India. He founded Infosys in Pune in the year 1983 and later relocated the head office to Bangalore. As on date Infosys has over 87 software development centres of which 32 are in India and the rest are outside India.

Narayana Murthy did his graduation from University of Mysore and his post graduation from IIT Kanpur. His first employer was IIM Ahmedabad as a chief systems engineer. After leaving IIM Ahmedabad he worked for quite a few years with Patni Computers Ltd.

Narayana Murthy is married to Sudha Murthy (Sudha Kulkarni). Sudha Murthy is also notable in her own accord as a social worker and an author. They have two joys, a son – Rohan & a daughter – Akshata.

Murthy has more than a dozen honours to his credit given by
Government of India – (Padma Shri, Padma Vibhushan),
Government of France – (Office of Legion of Honour)
Government of United Kingdom – (Commander of the Order of British Empire), Philanthropist of the Year, Hoover Medal, Icon of India, Entrepreneur of the Year and many more.

He is on our list of Notable Brahmins as a very successful Indian Businessman who has not only created wealth for millions but done so with integrity, honesty & courage.

Birth Score – 4/5
Pride Score – 5/5
A very impressive 9/10 Notable Brahmin Score.