Ep. 04: Letting Go to Grow - Institutionalised Way of Empowering and Scaling

In this episode of Unleashed Conversations, Kris Gopalakrishnan and SD Shibulal, Co-Founders of Infosys share about their journey of letting go and helping scale Infosys into a world class organisation by empowering people in the organisation. They share about the lessons learnt during this process - lessons that are relevant for anyone building a team, a company or a brand. We also hear from Shiv, CEO & Co-Founder of Exotel about his experience of letting go and bringing in a multi-dimensional approach as Exotel scales rapidly.

We also explore the journey of the leader I worked with, who could unleash the potential of his organization only when he moved from his centric to the institutional way of working.

Kris Gopalakrishnan is the Chairman of Axilor Ventures, an accelerator that helps start-ups during the early stage of their business journey. Kris served as the vice chairman of Infosys from 2011 to 2014 and the Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of Infosys from 2007 to 2011. Kris is one of the co-founders of Infosys. In January 2011, the Government of India awarded Mr. Gopalakrishnan the Padma Bhushan, the country’s third-highest civilian honor.

Find Kris on social media

Profile on Unleashed Conversations: ⁠⁠⁠https://srinivasuppaluri.com/unleashed-inspiring-leadership-journeys/kris-gopalakrishnan

LinkedIn: ⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/kris-gopalakrishnan-10b49950/

-------

S.D. Shibulal (Shibu) is the Co-founder, former Member of the Board and CEO of Infosys Ltd. Prior to becoming the CEO and Managing Director, Shibu served as the Chief Operating Officer from 2007 to 2011. Earlier, Shibu held a number of senior leadership roles including: Head of Worldwide Sales and Customer Delivery. From 1991 to 1996, Shibu had worked with Sun Microsystems in the US, where he led the team which designed and implemented Sun’s first e-commerce application. Shibu retired from Infosys on 31st July, 2014.

In 2014, Shibu co-founded Axilor Ventures – a new generation platform to improve odds of success of entrepreneurs. With three distinct programmes: accelerator, scale-up and early stage funding, Axilor provides infrastructure, mentoring and capital for high-impact, India–focussed start-ups (in the areas of e-commerce, Healthcare and Cleantech).

Find Shibu on social media

Profile on Unleashed Conversations: ⁠⁠⁠https://srinivasuppaluri.com/unleashed-inspiring-leadership-journeys/sd-shibulal

-------

Shivakumar Ganesan, or Shivku as he is affectionately called, is one of India’s leading startup and technology leaders under 40. He helms Exotel, as its Co-Founder and CEO, a company which has ushered one of the most trailblazing customer conversation platform and business-focused virtual telecom operator in the emerging world.

Shivku embarked on his entrepreneurial journey in 2011 when he co-founded Exotel. Under his visionary leadership, the company has experienced remarkable growth, solidifying its position as a key player in the industry. Presently, Exotel’s cloud-based product suite facilitates an astounding 70 million conversations daily for over 7,000 businesses across the globe.

Find Shiv on social media

Profile on Unleashed Conversations: https://srinivasuppaluri.com/unleashed-inspiring-leadership-journeys/shivakumar-ganesan

LinkedIn: ⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/shivku/

-------

More about Srini: ⁠⁠https://srinivasuppaluri.com⁠⁠

Connect with Srini on LinkedIn: ⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/srinivasuppaluri/⁠⁠

Join the Unleashed Community: ⁠⁠https://srinivasuppaluri.com/unleashed-inspiring-leadership-journeys⁠⁠

#startups #transformation #leadership #inspiration #technologyleaders