Disrupting India

Mohandas Pai

T.V. Mohandas Pai is the Chairperson of the Board of Manipal Global Education Services Private Limited and Advisor to the Manipal Education and Medical Group. Mohan is also on the Board of Ascendas Property Fund Trustee Pte Ltd (“APFT”), as Trustee-Manager of Ascendas India Trust (“a-iTrust). Recently, he has co-founded AARIN Capital with the intention of funding operational support in Technology, Ecommerce, Health Care and Life Science. He is based out of Bangalore, India. Mohan actively interfaces with key leadership at Indian regulators to improve the business ecosystem. His areas of focus are Education, Information Technology (“IT”) and Human Resource Development aimed at improving the quality of education and availability of skilled manpower in the Country. He was a Member of the Board of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (“SEBI”) and, was for many years before a Member of SEBI’s sub-committee on Accounting Standards. He is currently the Chairman of SEBI Primary Markets Advisory Committee (PMAC). Mohan was a Trustee of the International Financial Reporting Standards (“IFRS”) Foundation, the body that oversees the International Accounting Standards Board (“IASB”), for nearly six years now. Mohan was a Member of the Dr. Anil Kakodkar Committee on Autonomy for the IITs and the Karnataka Knowledge Commission. He is currently a Member on the Boards of IIT – Bhubaneswar and IPE, Hyderabad. Mohan was a Member of the Kelkar Committee, constituted by the Ministry of Finance, Government of India, to reform direct tax regulations. He was also a Member of the Non-Resident Taxation Committee, the High Powered Committee on e-Commerce and Taxation, and the Empowered Committee for setting up the Country’s Tax Information Network. Until mid-2011, Mohan was a Member of the Board at Infosys Limited, Bangalore (formerly Infosys Technologies Limited) where he headed Human Resources; the Infosys Leadership Institute; Education & Research; Administration; and Infrastructure & Facilities. Mohan was Chairperson of the Board of Infosys BPO Limited, a leading global business process outsourcing services provider, for seven years. Additionally, the Finacle and Platform Group business units reported into him. Mohan joined Infosys in 1994 and was elevated to a Member of the Board in 2000. He was Infosys’s CFO from 1994 to 2006. In 2006, he voluntarily relinquished the role to lead Human Resources and Education & Research. In June 2011, Mohan stepped out of Infosys to pursue his other long-standing passion – higher education for human development. As CFO at Infosys, Mohan played a strategic role in transforming the Company into one of the world’s most respected and well known software services companies based out of India. He formulated the country’s first publicly articulated corporate financial policy, played a pivotal role in branding the company amongst the investor community and set new standards in transparency and disclosure across the Indian corporate sector. Mohan was a key player in the development of the IT services industry in India. Mohan instituted several industry-firsts in the Country. He was instrumental in instituting India’s first employee stock option plan that enabled employees across Infosys to be part of and consequently to share in the wealth creation by the company. In India, this was the first ever employee stock option plan, which subsequently has been widely emulated. At Infosys, Mohan led the first listing of an India-registered company on the NASDAQ and the first sponsored secondary offering of American Depositary Shares by an Indian company. Mohan was an early adopter of US Sarbanes Oxley regulations, considered the world’s most demanding requirements on corporate governance. As CFO, Mohan won multiple awards in Finance & Accounting. He was voted ‘CFO of the Year’ in 2001 by IMA India (formerly EIU – India) and American Express, the very first year that the award was instituted. He also won the ‘Best CFO in India’ award from Finance Asia in 2002, and ‘Best Chief Financial Officer in India’ in the Best Managed Companies poll conducted by Asia Money in 2004 and many others. He was honored with the Kannada Rajyotsava Award for his exemplary public service. Under his supervision Infosys’s annual report won the Best Presented Annual Accounts Award from the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India for 10 consecutive years as well as the award from the South Asia Federation of Accountants. Mohan has a keen interest in human development through education such as illiteracy eradication through the promotion of primary education. In 2000, he along with certain other philanthropists set up the AkshayaPatra Foundation, Bangalore – a mid-day meal program for school going children. Mohan holds a bachelor’s degree in commerce from St. Joseph’s College of Commerce, Bangalore, and a bachelor’s degree in law (LLB) from Bangalore University. He is also a Fellow Member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India.