Lalit Surajmal Kanodia

Dr. Lalit Kanodia (born March 30, 1941) is an active Indian Business Entrepreneur. He is credited with having created the Software Industry of India as the Founder CEO of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), earlier called Tata Computer Center during 1967-1970. He is currently Chairman of Datamatics Group of Companies which he founded in 1975. He also holds the position of National President of the Indo - American Chamber of Commerce and Vice President of the Indian Merchants Chamber, both prestigious organizations of the Indian business community. He has also served as President of the Management Consultants Association of India.

Lalit Kanodia was born in Kolkata (then Calcutta) in West Bengal (India), the son of Shri Surajmal Kanodia, a bullion merchant and Smt. Chandravati Kanodia, a home maker. His family moved to Mumbai in 1942.

Lalit attended Bombay Scottish School in Mumbai, affiliated to Cambridge. Besides his academics, he actively participated in athletics and sports and captained his schools’ football Team.

Lalit has had a brilliant academic record. He was ranked the Best Student in the entire high school for 3 years. He then studied Science in Elphinstone College, Bombay University for 2 years and ranked at the top of the class. He was then admitted to IIT, Bombay, where he studied Mechanical Engineering. After graduating in 1963, Lalit secured admission to MIT, Cambridge, MA and completed his MS in Management in 1965 with the highest grade in the graduating class. He was awarded the Ford Foundation Fellowship while at MIT. He returned to MIT in 1966 for his PhD in management, which he completed in 1967. Lalit was a member of the Project MAC at MIT that built Compatible Time-Sharing System and MULTICS (the first two multi-user computer operating systems & pre-cursors to UNIX).

While at MIT, Dr. Kanodia taught a course on Statistical Decision Theory to MBA students. Later, in India he taught MBA students for 2 years at the Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies, Bombay University.

In 1965, Mr. JRD Tata, the then Chairman of Tata Group was contemplating to start a software company. He chanced upon the CV of Lalit Kanodia and asked him to study the feasibility of computerization within the Tata Group. Lalit wrote three Papers for the Tata Group which led to automation of the Load Dispatch System of the Tata Electric Companies by Westinghouse, Computerization of the electricity billing system of the company and formation of a software development center. Lalit then returned to MIT for his Doctorate. While there, he was chased and coaxed to return to India to form and head the software development center for the Tata Group. Lalit formed the Company in 1967 as Tata Computer Center, christened later as Tata Consultancy Services in 1968. As Founder CEO, Dr. Kanodia ensured that the company recruited the best talent possible, which included about 20 Ph.D's at the start itself, which gave the required stimulus to this enterprise, which is now India’s most valuable Company.

While in the USA, Lalit consulted to Arthur D. Little and the Ford Motor Company. In India, he has been a Consultant to the State Bank of India, the Somani Group and the Kamani Group of companies.

In continuation of his pioneering streak, Dr. Kanodia established his own Group of Companies under the Banner "Datamatics" in 1975. What he started with a modest team of 10 employees is now 8000 strong, with its footprints across the globe. In 1979 he set-up the first dedicated offshore development center for Wang Laboratories. He also established the first satellite link for Software development from India, between its software development center in Mumbai and AT&T Bell labs USA in 1991. This led to the foundation of BPO services in India and Dr. Kanodia formally started another company "Datamatics Technologies Limited" with 100% focus on BPO and KPO services. The start of BPO services helped Datamatics spread its wing globally and it acquired SAZTEC and CorPay, two US based companies in 1997 and 2003 respectively. Since then Datamatics has acquired several other companies globally to enhance its offerings and footprints across the globe. As on date, Dr. Kanodia is Group Chairman of Datamatics which comprises the following companies:

• Datamatics Global Services Ltd (A listed Company with BSE/NSE)
• CIGNEX Datamatics Technologies Ltd
• Lumina Datamatics Ltd
• Datamatics Staffing Services Ltd

• SAZTEC International, Inc. (13 October 2003). "Datamatics Technologies Limited to Acquire SAZTEC International, Inc.". 
• "Datamatics plans to buy overseas BPO firms". timesofindia-economictimes. 
• "Leadership Team". 
• "Global IT Services, IT Solutions, IT Consulting Company - Datamatics". 
• "NSE - National Stock Exchange of India Ltd.". 
• "Stock Share Price datamatics global services ltd - Get Quote datamatics - BSE". 
• "Open Source Enterprise Solutions - Portals, ECM, eCommerce, Big Data Analytics". CIGNEX Datamatics. 
• "Online Publishing - Retail Solutions - Publishing Services - Content Development - Lumina Datamatics". Lumina Datamatics. 
• http://www.datamaticsindia.com/

Dr. Kanodia has four children with his wife Asha Kanodia. The couple celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary on 19 November 2015. Eldest son Rahul Kanodia is Vice Chairman and CEO of Datamatics Global Services and youngest son Sameer Kanodia is an Executive Director. His two daughters Aneesha and Amrita are married and happily settled.

Dr Kanodia cherishes teaching and inspiring the younger generation to aspire for greater goals in their life. He firmly believes in education as a vital instrument to shape society into a progressive and productive one. He is regularly invited as guest of honor and keynote speaker at various conclaves and institutes across the Globe.

His approach to successful leadership is to ‘stay a student all your life’, which according to him is the pivot of continuous learning. A Philomath, Dr. Kanodia’s personal tenets to unleash one’s true potential are -

1. Potential is limitless
2. Learn from the mistake of others
3. Teach or write to learn
4. Interact with people smarter than yourself and
5. Be a good listener

In order to propagate these virtues he regularly delivers informative lectures at several acclaimed Management and IT colleges. He has been invited to various esteemed institutes to educate and share his ideas and knowledge in IT and associated subjects.

Dr. Kanodia’s leadership has bagged him several National and International Awards, significant among which are as follows:

1. Indian Affairs Indian of the year Award for IT, Consulting and BPO services
2. Special Achievement Award at Asia Pacific Entrepreneurship Awards
3. Global Achiever Award for Business Excellence
4. Award from Prime Minister of India for the most innovative software product

Dr. Kanodia has also served as the Past President of the Management Consultants' Association of India. He is National President of the Indo - American Chamber of Commerce. He is Vice President of Indian Merchants Chamber and Chairman of its IT Committee.

He has been a Member of the Executive Committee of NASSCOM.He has been Chairman of the Electronic & Computer Software Export Promotion Council (Western Region). He is a member of the Executive Board of the Sloan School of Management, MIT Boston MA since 2008. He served as the Honorary Consul General of Chile in India from 2002 to 2014.