You are reading a success story of Mohandas Pai, former CFO, Board Member at Infosys, Padma Shri Award holder, Chairman of Manipal Global Education, and co-founder of Akshaya Patra Foundation, world’s largest midday meal program.
Mohandas Pai has carved niche in his own way. Sugermint wishes to emulate him on the path of success. Here we are sharing you the success stories of Indian entrepreneurs that will inspire you.
Who is Mohandas Pai?
Mohandas Pai is a former CFO, Board Member at Infosys. He is a Padma Shri Award holder. He is known to be socially conscious human beings with a soft heart.
He is known as the Chairman of Manipal Global Education. Mohandas is a co-founder of the world’s largest midday meal program, Akshaya Patra.
Mohandas Pai is also a head of Human Resources, Administration, Financial, and Education and Research of Infosys Leadership Institute. Mohandas was also the Chairman of the Board of Infosys BPO.
He is a trustee of the International Accounting Standards Committee Foundation, the body that oversees the International Accounting Standards Board.
Early Life and Education
Mohandas Pai Born to a middle class family. His father is a manager for pipe distributors Tubes and Mallples Limited. He did his schooling at St. Joseph’s Indian High School, Bangalore.
Mohandas holds a bachelors degree in Law from the Bangalore University and holds a bachelor’s degree in commerce from St. Joseph’s College of Commerce, Bangalore.
In 2011, Mohandas received an offer to co-chair the proposed Bangalore University School of Economics. Pai is also a fellow member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI).
Mohandas married to Kusum and has 2 sons Siddharth and Pranav. Siddharth is a chartered accountant and Pranav has an Associate in Nursing engineering degree from Stanford.
Career at Infosys
In 1992, Mohandas was working in Prakash Leasing as a finance professional in Bangalore. It had been almost 7 years working with this finance company. He was about to quit the Prakash Leasing and move abroad.
Mohandas saw Infosys planning their IPO. A Dalal Street veteran, Vallabh Bhansali was managing Infosys IPO. He went to the investor meet of Infosys pre-IPO and then to a meeting of analysts in Mumbai.
He went on to ask some questions. Vallabh Bhansali advised Narayana Murthy not to answer one of his questions. Eventually, Mohandas Pai bought 1000 shares of Infosys Limited.
Given the knowledge he held, Nandan Nilekani, Infosys co-founder and Narayana Murthy then decided to hire Mohandas Pai in Infosys Limited as a Financial Consultant.
Eventually, in 1994, he then joined the Infosys company full time, served as a Member of the Board, Head – Financial, Human Resources, Administration, Education and Research, Infrastructure, Finacle and Platform Groups Business Units and Infosys Leadership Institute.
Under his supervision, the Annual Report of Infosys has won the top awards consistently from the South Asian Federation of Accountants and from the Institute of Chartered Accountants.
Mohandas went on to play a strategic role in transforming Infosys into one of the world’s most reputed software development companies.
Mohandas was very vocal on issues like immigration, hiring, visa matters, and outsourcing. He was also known to be the voice of Infosys.
Pai went on to help scale the business from $5 million to $6.5 billion, helped hire 160,000 people and trained 225,000 as HR head, met 300 investors a year, ran businesses globally, and accomplished a lot more….
In 2011, he decided resigned as the member of the Infosys board as director, quit Infosys company and decided to do something of his own.
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He always wishes to concentrates on social issues and do something better for society. Mohandas still holds 728,000 shares of Infosys.
Akshaya Patra Foundation
Along with others, Mohandas founded the Akshaya Patra Foundation to start a midday meal program for school children. It is one in every of world’s largest twelve-noon meal program.
Mohandas had personally gathered support from all philanthropists, political leaders, industry leaders, and policy-makers to launch foundation.
The world’s largest non-government, mid-day meal initiative addresses the critical problem of malnutrition and chronic hunger among children. The Akshaya Patra Foundation stands out as an exemplary private-public partnership program.
Today, the mid-day meal program feeds over 1.5 million children daily in 8,500+ schools across nine Indian States. Mohandas Pai never talked about his contributions to a good cause and inspired a lot of us to do the right things.
Mohandas Pai’s Achievements
- 2001: Voted the ‘CFO of the Year’ by IMA India.
- 2002: Won the ‘Best CFO in India’ award from Finance Asia.
- 2004: Best Chief Financial Officer in India’ in the Best Managed Companies poll conducted by Asia Money.
- 2015: Padma Shri Award, the fourth highest civilian award in India by the President of India
- Board Member of National Stock Exchange of India
- Board Member of CSIR-Tech Private Limited
We hope you find the inspiring story of Mohandas Pai, Padma Shri Award holder, former CFO, Board Member at Infosys, Co-founder of Akshaya Patra Foundation, and Chairman of Manipal Global Education useful and inspiring through your entrepreneurial journey and will keep you inspired.
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