India's Brightest Students Who Became CEOs

6. S. Gopalakrishnan:

Senapathy Gopalakrishnan was born on 5th April 1956 in Trivandrum, Kerala, to a lower middle class family. Poor financial conditions forced him to abandon studies when he was 18 years old and at that tender age, he started a small plumbing business. But his hunger to study did not perish and was very keen to study further. He fell short by two marks in the medical entrance exam.

Later he earned both M.Sc in Physics and M.Tech in Computer Science, from Indian Institute of Technology, Madras.

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Despite offers from large business conglomerates during campus placements, Gopalakrishnan opted for a little known Patni Computer Systems based in Mumbai, where he became a part of the center team.

Three years later, Gopalakrishnan made an unusual choice of starting a start-up company called the Infosys. In his early years at Infosys, he looked after the development, implementation, management of design, and support of information systems for the clients. 

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