Phaneesh: opening iGate to billion dollar dream

BANGALORE, INDIA: 'In the end you get what you desire for'. This is a very old but still effective saying. A lot of people in the industry believe that the recent acquisition of Patni Computers is the result of a far-fetched dream of Phaneesh Murthy, CEO, iGate.

Before being part of iGate, his last stint was at Infosys Technologies, which was then headed by Narayana Murthy, who had quit his job from Patni Computers to start Infosys. A Murthy connection!

An MBA graduate of the Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad, and having received the equivalent of a BS Degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, Chennai, Phaneesh started his career as a sales and marketing person for Sonata Software Ltd around 1987.

Later, he joined Infosys and soon climbed up the ladder of success to become the director of Infosys and Head - Sales & Marketing and Communication & Product Services (CAPS) of the company. After being asked to move from the company (in 2002), over the charges of sexual harassment, he started his own firm called Quintant. 

Within a year, the company was acquired by iGate. Since it was a reverse merger, Phaneesh was asked to take over the management as the CEO of the company.

But beyond these connections, swallowing a big fish was part of his larger vision. iGate was even said to be keen at acquiring Satyam. According to a Reuters report, Phaneesh had said that they were interested in buying the scandal-hit Satyam Computers, if its liabilities were not more than $1.25 billion.

A few months back, in an interaction with CIOL, he had said that iGate, roughly a $300 million company, is chasing a billion dollar dream and said that the company hoped to realize it soon. Hopefully, with this acquisition, he is closer to that dream. 

Now that iGate has taken over Patni, it would be interesting to watch how it will march ahead in this race, where it will now compete against major IT players like Wipro, TCS and Infosys.