India's Most Influential

If any one person can be called the father of India's booming IT sector, it's N.R. Narayana Murthy, who with six other software engineers founded Infosys Technologies in 1981. As the company's CEO for its first two decades, Murthy not only built a multi-billion dollar software and IT services firm, he proved India could compete with the world by taking on work that had previously been done in much richer countries. In so doing, Murthy helped spark the outsourcing revolution that has brought billions into the local economy and transformed India into the world's back office. He retired as CEO in 2006 and now consults and acts as a mentor to younger Indian entrepreneurs. Humble and self-effacing, Murthy is known to fly economy class and lives in a modest home in Bangalore — proof, say his fans, that you can combine business success with Gandhian humility.

—By Simon Robinson