december 29, 2017 forbes india | 71Just like a plumber he likens
himself to in jest, nilekani is
back to plugging leaks
says Nilekani’s tenure as the chairman
of UIDAI, from 2009 to 2014, was
a testament to his perseverance
and people skills, as he went about
quelling negative sentiments around
Aadhaar. “There was a time when
things weren’t going according to
plan and bureaucracy and political
manoeuvres were chipping away
at the credibility of Aadhaar,”
recalls Pugalia. “Nilekani figured
out who were the stakeholders and
why they were against a particular
idea. He reached out to all of
them, one by one, irrespective of
what their opposition was.”
The dream run of over three
decades, however, came to a
screeching halt in 2014, when
Nilekani faced what can arguably
be called the biggest setback of his
life: He was routed in the Lok Sabha
elections of 2014. Nothing helped.
Neither an elaborately planned poll
campaign by the team at FourthLion,
backed by tomes of research on
civic issues and electoral pattern in
the Bangalore South constituency,
Nilekani’s turf, nor his transformation
from an English-spouting, suave
corporate leader in suits to a common
man who walked around in sandals,
exchanging friendly banter with
prospective voters in Kannada. Like
most other Congress candidates,
Nilekani was swept away by the ‘Modi
wave’. On May 16, 2014, even before
the counting was over, Nilekani
conceded defeat to BJP veteran
Ananth Kumar. Humbled at the
hustings, Nilekani gradually withdrew
himself from politics. He hasn’t
spoken about rejoining politics since.
Balakrishnan, who faced a similar
drubbing at the same elections
while contesting on an Aam Aadmi
Party ticket, says politics is not
Nilekani’s “cup of tea”. “Politics
is a different ball game where you
have to play on others’ weaknesses
more than to your strengths,
which Nilekani is not comfortable
doing,” says Balakrishnan.
Nilekani isn’t the kind who sulks
for long. On a constant lookout for
large-scale problems, he has turned
into a prolific investor and mentor
for startups. He has backed more
than 10 startups, including publishing
startup Juggernaut, media company
The Print, ecommerce startup 10i
Commerce Services, and logistics
venture Fortigo. Earlier this year,
Nilekani launched a $100-million
venture capital fund called
Fundamentum, where he is involved
in everything from raising funds and
hiring to designing the firm’s logo.
“Nilekani believes the problem of
India is not to start up, but to scale
up. At Fundamentum, we will back
companies which are not meteors but
built to scale,” says Sanjeev Aggarwal,
co-founder at Fundamentum.
At present, Nilekani is busy
with the startup he had built fromscratch and scaled, Infosys. Just
like a plumber he likens himself
to in jest among friends and
family, Nilekani is back to what
he does best: Plugging leaks.
On August 25, he staged a
comeback as the non-executive
chairman after a hiatus of about
eight years, this time to guide Infosys
out of a turbulence triggered by the
surprise exit of chief executive Vishal
Sikka and a protracted sabre-rattling
between Murthy and the Infosys
board over corporate governance.
Nilekani is expected to reconstitute
the board and lead the hunt for
Infosys’s next chief executive.
It’s a daunting task to make Infosys
the bellwether it had once been, but
Nilekani is up for the challenge. Until
the house is in order, everything
else, it seems, will have to wait.infosys
headquarters
in bengaluruHemant misHra / mint via getty images