The Voice of Infosys, who helped scale their business from $5 mn to $6.5 billions...................

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Known as the voice of Infosys, who helped scale their business from $5 mn to $6.5 bn to founding the the world's largest non-profit mid-day meal programme, Mohandas Pai is an epitome of giving back to the society.

Coming from a humble background, Mohandas was born to a middle class family where his father was a manager for pipe distributor company. Pai never thought he would become what he is today.

• How did his life change then?

The turning point for him came in 1992 when he started working at Prakash Leasing as a #finance professional in Bangalore. Here, he would crunch company balance sheets for breakfast.

After 7 years of working, he decided to quit to move abroad. One day, Mohandas saw Infosys planning their IPO and decided to attend its pre-IPO investor meet & meeting of analysts in Mumbai. Little did he know that his #life was about to change.

A Dalal Street veteran of those times, Vallabh Bhansali was managing Infosys IPO. When Mohandas went on to ask some thought provoking questions, Vallabh advised Narayana Murthy not to answer one of his questions.

• However, 2 things ended up happening:

1. Mohandas bought 1000 shares of Infosys as he believed that it will be one of the most #successful companies.

2. Given his deep knowledge, Nandan Nilekani & Narayana Murthy decided to hire Mohandas Pai as a Financial Consultant.

2 years later, in 1994, he joined Infosys full time as a board member & CFO, and transformed it into one of the world’s most reputed #software development companies.

After 17 years, in 2011, he shocked everyone when he decided to quit to do something of his own. He wanted to spend time on promoting higher education & sitting on the board of companies.

After leaving, he started investing only to become India’s top start-up investors, so much so that he was ranked as the number one angel #investor in India in 2015, even ahead of Ratan Tata.

Some of his investments include: Byju’s, Counsyl, ZoomCar, Praxify, YourStory, and Licious.

He took a step ahead & became a part of funds including – Aarin Capital (his main fund), Unitus Seed Fund, Saha Fund, Tandem Capital, Aaruha Capital, and Exfinity Ventures.

• His philanthropic efforts:

He dearly followed Albert Einstein's words, 'it is every man’s obligation to put back into the world, at least the equivalent of what he takes out of it'.

Mohandas founded the The Akshaya Patra Foundation which today feeds over 2 mn children daily!

In 2015, he was awarded with the Padma Shri Award, and today continues to be an investor, advisor & a proud parent to his two sons who run a successful VC fund, 3one4 Capital.

His story is an indication of the fact that, no matter what background you come from, you create your own destiny with sheer hardwork & focus. Agree?

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