Rajesh Gopinathan: Successful Story Of Former TCS CEO!

Rajesh Gopinathan is the CEO and Managing Director of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), the Indian IT services, consulting, and business solutions MNC. On 16th March 2023, TCS announced the resignation of Rajesh from his current role as CEO and Managing Director of the organization.

Apart from serving in his current designation for the last 6 years, Rajesh has spent a total of 22 years with the IT behemoth. One of his significant achievements at TCS includes the company crossing the market capitalization of USD 100 billion under his leadership, thus achieving the feat of being the most valuable company in India.

Rajesh is also a recipient of several coveted awards such as Business Today (India)’s ‘India’s Best CEO in the category of Super large companies’ award in 2021 and CNBC TV18 India Business Leader Awards (IBLA)’s ‘Outstanding Business Leader of the Year award in 2020.

Physical Stats

Rajesh Gopinathan Family

Rajesh was born on 13th August 1971 in Thrissur, a district in the state of Kerala. However, he was raised in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh. His father’s name is Chilayil Gopinathan and his mother’s name is not available in the public domain.

Rajesh is married to Dr. Lekshmi, an architect by profession. She also holds a Ph.D. degree from IIT-Bombay. Rajesh and Lekshmi have two children, a daughter, Malini, and a son, Anirudh. Currently, Rajesh resides in Mumbai along with his wife and children.

Relationships

There is no information available in the public domain regarding whether Rajesh had any relationships.

Rajesh Gopinathan Education

Rajesh did his schooling at St. Mary’s Convent Inter College RDSO Manak Nagar, Lucknow. As per the information shared by his batchmates, he is an alumni of the 1987 Batch of SMCIC RDSO Lucknow. Later, in 1990, he joined the National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli to pursue his engineering studies.

Rajesh completed the four-year BE, Electrical and Electronics Engineering degree in 1994. In the same year, he enrolled at the Indian Institute of Management,  Ahmedabad for PGDM (equivalent to MBA) and passed out in 1996.

Controversies

There are no known controversies available about Rajesh in the public domain.

Rajesh Gopinathan Profession

In April 1996, Rajesh kickstarted his professional career by joining Tata Strategic Management Group’s Mumbai office. After working for 4 years and 9 months as a Manager, in December 2000, he quit the organization.

In January 2001 Rajesh joined Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) as a pre-sales consultant. Later, he went on to work in various roles within TCS in diverse domains such as operations, sales, and corporate functions. Eventually, Rajesh was spotted by N. Chandrasekaran, the current chairman of Tata Sons.

Back then, Chandrasekaran was working as the Vice President, of Operations and he chose Rajesh to help him run the strategy for TCS. Later, when Chandrasekaran became the Chief Operating Officer (COO), he was in charge of restructuring the company and he shifted Rajesh to business finance.

In 2012, Rajesh went on to become the Deputy CFO and in that role, he was mentored by S Mahalingam, the former CFO of TCS. A year later, he was elevated to the designation of Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of the organization. As CFO, Rajesh was responsible for heading the roadmap and strategy of the company. Till 2017, he continued as the CFO of the organization.

In February 2017, Rajesh was promoted to CEO of TCS. It followed the then-CEO N Chandrasekaran’s elevation as the Chairman of Tata Sons.

During his 6 years tenure as CEO, Rajesh’s significant achievements include the market capitalization of TCS doubling from a mere $70 billion to more than $141 billion, stock prices zooming from Rs.1208 to a record high of Rs.3835 and later settling at the current price of Rs. 3185 and the employee count surging to a mammoth 6.13 lakhs from just 3.85 lakhs in 2017.

Rajesh Gopinathan Source Of Income

In FY22, Rajesh received a total compensation of Rs. 25.75 crores. As per the TCS annual report for the financial year 2021-22, there was a surge in his salary by 26.6%. Rajesh Gopinathan, one of India’s richest CEOs, is predicted to have a net worth of over Rs. 4700 crores in 2023.

Lesser Known Facts About Rajesh Gopinathan

• Rajesh is always curious to know things. According to him, if he comes across something new, he likes to get to the bottom of what is going on and that quality has helped him a lot.

• It was a coincidence that on February 21, the day Rajesh took charge as the CEO of TCS, his wife Lakshmi received a Ph.D. degree from IIT Mumbai. Later Rajesh jokingly commented that he became the CEO and his wife became Dr. Lekshmi.

• After the news of his resignation as TCS CEO was announced, Rajesh said that he never prepared a resume after his campus days and his batchmates know about that.

• When asked about his favorite quote, Rajesh referred to former Apple CEO Steve Jobs’s statement “ It’s not a customer’s job to know what they want”.

• According to Rajesh, 9 out of 10 startups fail not due to the reason that they have bad technology. Though they have great technology, they lack contextual knowledge and trust and hence they are missing a chance to make it work.

• Rajesh opines that India’s position in Information technology is equivalent to what Japan used to be in manufacturing. He went on to say that a customer knows that he can sleep well if he gives work to Indians.

• While commenting on the occasion of his resignation as TCS’s CEO, Rajesh said that he had decided earlier that the day his heart is not 100% committed to doing his work, he will quit and that decision acted as the trigger point.

• Rajesh loves going for long walks and likes reading books, traveling, and watching movies.

• He is of the opinion that as part of digital transformation, there has been mindless spending on cloud services during the pandemic days.

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