IIM Bangalore to host fireside chat with Mr. Aditya Puri and Mr. Narayana Murthy on ‘The Art of Building Legendary Companies’
The session is being facilitated by Catamaran, the family investment office of Mr. Narayana Murthy
Catamaran will organize a special interactive session titled, ‘The Art of Building Legendary Companies’, featuring two of India’s most consequential institution-builders – Mr. Aditya Puri, Senior Advisor, Carlyle Asia, former CEO and Managing Director of HDFC Bank, and Mr. Narayana Murthy, Founder, Catamaran and Founder, Infosys, on January 30, 2026, at 3:30 PM, at the IIMB auditorium.
The event will open with a welcome address by Prof. U Dinesh Kumar, Director In-charge, IIMB, followed by a fireside chat with Mr. Puri and Mr. Murthy, moderated by Mr. MD Ranganath, Chairman, Catamaran. The discussion will be followed by an extended Q&A session with students. Drawing on decades of leadership experience, Mr. Puri and Mr. Murthy will reflect on how to build and nurture a large, globally respected organization.
Following the auditorium program, participants will have the opportunity for an informal interaction with Mr. Murthy, the Catamaran team, and a curated group of invited guests, including IIM B alumni, from India’s entrepreneurial, investment, and corporate leadership circles over high tea.
About Catamaran
Catamaran is the family investment office of Mr. Narayana Murthy, established in 2011 with the purpose of funding high quality entrepreneurship over a long period of time. Now in its fifteenth year of operations, Catamaran manages approximately USD 1.3 billion in assets across public markets and private equity and venture capital portfolios in India and the United States.
With a team of 17 professionals based in Bengaluru, Catamaran has engaged with over 2,000 startup founders, made 31 direct investments in early-stage and growth companies, and invested in 20 venture capital funds. The firm has also forged successful joint venture partnerships with global organizations such as Amazon and Aon.
Guided by Mr. Murthy’s belief in learning from global best practices, the team has studied enterprise and innovation ecosystems across countries, including the United States, China, Japan, Israel, Taiwan, Vietnam, and Malaysia.
Catamaran’s vision is to be a globally respected catalyst, investing in innovative, value-driven businesses with the potential for significant impact and lasting success.
About Mr. Aditya Puri
Few leaders have shaped India’s financial landscape as decisively as Aditya Puri. When he took on the challenge of building HDFC Bank in 1994, private banking in India was still nascent, and public trust in financial institutions was fragile. Over the next 26 years, Mr. Puri led the bank’s transformation into India’s largest private sector bank, setting benchmarks in risk management, customer service, and operational excellence.
Under his leadership, HDFC Bank helped institutionalize many services now taken for granted in Indian banking, from retail credit products to technology-enabled service delivery. Today, HDFC Bank is India's largest private bank, with a 14% market share of India's banking sector. It is the 2nd largest company in India by market capitalization, with a market cap of ~$160 bn. It has a revenue of ~$40 bn and a net profit of ~$8 bn employing ~2,15,000 people. Since the bank went public in 1995, it has delivered a return to investors of 24% p.a. including dividends.
What makes Aditya Puri especially remarkable is not just the size of the bank he built, but how he built it. He believed in growing carefully rather than chasing quick profits, managing risk responsibly, and hiring people with strong values. During multiple crises, for example the global financial crisis of 2008, HDFC Bank remained stable and profitable, earning the trust of millions of Indians. His career is often used as an example of how patience, integrity, and long-term thinking can create lasting success.
Mr. Puri has won several awards and accolades during his tenure, including being named among Barron’s Top 30 Global CEOs from 2015 to 2018 and Fortune’s Top 20 Businesspersons globally in 2017. He was also named Banker of the Year by Business Standard, and most recently, received Euromoney’s Lifetime Achievement Award.
About Mr. Narayana Murthy
When we speak about people who helped put India on the global map, NRN is one of the first names that comes to mind. At a time when India was not known for technology or innovation, he co-founded Infosys with a small group of colleagues with an idea that Indian talent could build world-class technology companies. This was at a time when it took 3 years and 50 trips to Delhi to import one computer.
Starting with very limited resources, he helped grow Infosys into a global IT services leader, working with some of the world’s largest companies and creating thousands of high-quality jobs in India which helped build India's middle class. In doing so, he played a key role in shaping India’s reputation as a global technology powerhouse.
Infosys was one of the earliest Indian IT companies to list on an international stock exchange. It also pioneered practices such as employee stock ownership, large-scale training, world-class campuses and structured processes, elements that came to define the modern Indian IT services industry. Infosys was also a pioneer in how Indian companies were run. It set new benchmarks in corporate governance, disclosure, and merit-based promotion, long before these became common practice.
Today, Infosys is India's 2nd largest IT services company by revenue with a market cap of ~$75 bn. It has a revenue of ~$20 bn and a net profit of ~$3 bn employing ~3,31,000 people. Since Infosys went public in 1993 it has delivered a return to investors of 35% p.a. including dividends.
What makes NRN especially important is the values he stood for. He strongly believed in honesty, transparency, and fairness. Infosys's tagline "Powered by intellect, driven by values" symbolizes its culture.
In 2014, Mr. Murthy was ranked 13th among CNBC’s 25 global business leaders and was listed among the ‘12 greatest entrepreneurs of our time’ by Fortune magazine in 2012. He received the Legion d’honneur from France, CBE from Britain and Padma Vibhushan from India. The Economist ranked him among the 10 most-admired global business leaders in 2005. He is the first Indian winner of Ernst and Young’s World Entrepreneur of the Year award.
IIM Bangalore to host fireside chat with Mr. Aditya Puri and Mr. Narayana Murthy on ‘The Art of Building Legendary Companies’
The session is being facilitated by Catamaran, the family investment office of Mr. Narayana Murthy
Catamaran will organize a special interactive session titled, ‘The Art of Building Legendary Companies’, featuring two of India’s most consequential institution-builders – Mr. Aditya Puri, Senior Advisor, Carlyle Asia, former CEO and Managing Director of HDFC Bank, and Mr. Narayana Murthy, Founder, Catamaran and Founder, Infosys, on January 30, 2026, at 3:30 PM, at the IIMB auditorium.
The event will open with a welcome address by Prof. U Dinesh Kumar, Director In-charge, IIMB, followed by a fireside chat with Mr. Puri and Mr. Murthy, moderated by Mr. MD Ranganath, Chairman, Catamaran. The discussion will be followed by an extended Q&A session with students. Drawing on decades of leadership experience, Mr. Puri and Mr. Murthy will reflect on how to build and nurture a large, globally respected organization.
Following the auditorium program, participants will have the opportunity for an informal interaction with Mr. Murthy, the Catamaran team, and a curated group of invited guests, including IIM B alumni, from India’s entrepreneurial, investment, and corporate leadership circles over high tea.
About Catamaran
Catamaran is the family investment office of Mr. Narayana Murthy, established in 2011 with the purpose of funding high quality entrepreneurship over a long period of time. Now in its fifteenth year of operations, Catamaran manages approximately USD 1.3 billion in assets across public markets and private equity and venture capital portfolios in India and the United States.
With a team of 17 professionals based in Bengaluru, Catamaran has engaged with over 2,000 startup founders, made 31 direct investments in early-stage and growth companies, and invested in 20 venture capital funds. The firm has also forged successful joint venture partnerships with global organizations such as Amazon and Aon.
Guided by Mr. Murthy’s belief in learning from global best practices, the team has studied enterprise and innovation ecosystems across countries, including the United States, China, Japan, Israel, Taiwan, Vietnam, and Malaysia.
Catamaran’s vision is to be a globally respected catalyst, investing in innovative, value-driven businesses with the potential for significant impact and lasting success.
About Mr. Aditya Puri
Few leaders have shaped India’s financial landscape as decisively as Aditya Puri. When he took on the challenge of building HDFC Bank in 1994, private banking in India was still nascent, and public trust in financial institutions was fragile. Over the next 26 years, Mr. Puri led the bank’s transformation into India’s largest private sector bank, setting benchmarks in risk management, customer service, and operational excellence.
Under his leadership, HDFC Bank helped institutionalize many services now taken for granted in Indian banking, from retail credit products to technology-enabled service delivery. Today, HDFC Bank is India's largest private bank, with a 14% market share of India's banking sector. It is the 2nd largest company in India by market capitalization, with a market cap of ~$160 bn. It has a revenue of ~$40 bn and a net profit of ~$8 bn employing ~2,15,000 people. Since the bank went public in 1995, it has delivered a return to investors of 24% p.a. including dividends.
What makes Aditya Puri especially remarkable is not just the size of the bank he built, but how he built it. He believed in growing carefully rather than chasing quick profits, managing risk responsibly, and hiring people with strong values. During multiple crises, for example the global financial crisis of 2008, HDFC Bank remained stable and profitable, earning the trust of millions of Indians. His career is often used as an example of how patience, integrity, and long-term thinking can create lasting success.
Mr. Puri has won several awards and accolades during his tenure, including being named among Barron’s Top 30 Global CEOs from 2015 to 2018 and Fortune’s Top 20 Businesspersons globally in 2017. He was also named Banker of the Year by Business Standard, and most recently, received Euromoney’s Lifetime Achievement Award.
About Mr. Narayana Murthy
When we speak about people who helped put India on the global map, NRN is one of the first names that comes to mind. At a time when India was not known for technology or innovation, he co-founded Infosys with a small group of colleagues with an idea that Indian talent could build world-class technology companies. This was at a time when it took 3 years and 50 trips to Delhi to import one computer.
Starting with very limited resources, he helped grow Infosys into a global IT services leader, working with some of the world’s largest companies and creating thousands of high-quality jobs in India which helped build India's middle class. In doing so, he played a key role in shaping India’s reputation as a global technology powerhouse.
Infosys was one of the earliest Indian IT companies to list on an international stock exchange. It also pioneered practices such as employee stock ownership, large-scale training, world-class campuses and structured processes, elements that came to define the modern Indian IT services industry. Infosys was also a pioneer in how Indian companies were run. It set new benchmarks in corporate governance, disclosure, and merit-based promotion, long before these became common practice.
Today, Infosys is India's 2nd largest IT services company by revenue with a market cap of ~$75 bn. It has a revenue of ~$20 bn and a net profit of ~$3 bn employing ~3,31,000 people. Since Infosys went public in 1993 it has delivered a return to investors of 35% p.a. including dividends.
What makes NRN especially important is the values he stood for. He strongly believed in honesty, transparency, and fairness. Infosys's tagline "Powered by intellect, driven by values" symbolizes its culture.
In 2014, Mr. Murthy was ranked 13th among CNBC’s 25 global business leaders and was listed among the ‘12 greatest entrepreneurs of our time’ by Fortune magazine in 2012. He received the Legion d’honneur from France, CBE from Britain and Padma Vibhushan from India. The Economist ranked him among the 10 most-admired global business leaders in 2005. He is the first Indian winner of Ernst and Young’s World Entrepreneur of the Year award.