From Murthy to Murthy: Top business newsmakers of 2013

With the Lok Sabha elections drawing closer, business and economy made some big news this year. Inflation kept the UPA government and the central bank on their toes. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, BJP’s Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi and P Chidambaram, who was brought back to the finance ministry to save a teeteering economy, could have made been the most discussed personalities among the business community. But, for sure, they were not the biggest news makers. Here’s a look at who all made it big in business news in the year 2013.

NR Narayana Murthy: The Infosys co-founder was called back from retirement to salvage the company which was performing dismally for the last two years.Murthy, however, warned that recovery for the underperforming software exporter will be painful and time-consuming. He has said he will need at least three years to rebuild a “desirable Infosys” without specifying any numerical benchmark. However, Infosys witnessed an exodus of its senior-level executives in the past few months after Murthy’s return. There were eight top level exits in just 6 months. But Murthy seems to have a succession plan in place. What will happen to Infosys in 2014? Can Murthy return its magic? That is yet to be seen.

[caption id=“attachment_1287373” align=“alignright” width=“380”] Narayana Murthy. Reuters[/caption]

**Raghuram Rajan:**The former International Monetary Fund chief economist, who walked into Mint Road in September, came with a ‘rockstar’ image. He took over as the governor of the Reserve Bank of India at a time when the rupee was at cross roads and the country was witnessing one of the worst economic storms. When Rajan took over as the Guv, therupee was trading at 68 levels against the dollar, and as the calendar year comes to a close it has stabilised at 61-62 levels. The markets also stabilised soon after Rajan’s first policy. Rajan walked the talk and stayed in the news throughout the year. However, in his last policy, he surprised everybody by not choosing to hike repo rates despite high inflation.

**Arundhati Bhattacharya:**Only a few powerful women have made it to the top at Indian banks andArundhati Bhattacharya made big headlines when she was made thechief of State Bank of India, the largest lender in the country.It is for the first time in its 207 years of history a woman is leading the bank.During her first interaction with the media, the new chief of the country’s largest bank has said the war on non-performing assets has intensified and that non-performing managements have no reason to continue being in office. With her latest decision to cut home loan rates which was immediately followed by HDFC and ICICI Bank,the SBI chief showed that she is no less aggressive than the Mistrys and Kochhars of the banking world.

Phaneesh Murthy: The former iGate CEO came in the news for all the wrong reasons. In May 2013, he wassacked as the chief executive of the IT outsourcing company for not disclosing a relationship with a subordinate. And this wasn’t the first for Murthy. A decade earlier,Phaneesh Murthy’s career at Infosys blew up under the cloud of a sexual harassment lawsuit, which Infosys settled out of court.At Infosys, he was known as “the other Murthy”, an allusion to the charismatic founder NR Narayana Murthy.Murthy now plans to start afresh and will offer consultancy services in areas like business strategy and restructuring. Hehas also filed a defamation and breach of contract case against iGate.

**Jignesh Shah:**The year began well forJignesh Shah. In February, he presided over the much awaited launch of equity trading inMCXStock Exchange (MCX-SX), completing a near-five-year journey. But, it clearly did not end well.The founder and vice chairman of MCX, however, resigned from the board of the exchange he built from a start-up in 2003 into India’s biggest commodities bourse. National Spot Exchange Ltd (NSEL), an unlisted subsidiary that traded in spot contracts in the commodities space, ran into a massive payment crisis. As the exchange struggled to meet payment obligations of about Rs 5,600 crore towards some 13,000 investors, Shah’s flagship listed firms began to bear the brunt.While Shah has portrayed the entire NSEL episode as an employee fraud, blaming the former chief executive Anjani Sinha-led management, investigative agencies are yet to give Shah a clean chit.