Mr Senapathy “Kris” Gopalakrishnan is the Chairman of Axilor Ventures, an accelerator that helps start-ups during the early stage of their business journey. Kris served as the vice chairman of Infosys from 2011 to 2014 and the chief executive officer and managing director of Infosys from 2007 to 2011. Kris is one of the co-founders of Infosys. Recognized as a global business and technology thought leader, he was voted the top CEO (IT Services category) in Institutional Investor’s inaugural ranking of Asia’s Top Executives and selected as one of the winners of the second Asian Corporate Director Recognition Awards by Corporate Governance Asia in 2011. He was elected president of India’s apex industry chamber Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) for 2013-14 and served as one of the co-chairs of the World Economic Forum in Davos in January 2014.

In January 2011, the Government of India awarded Mr. Gopalakrishnan the Padma Bhushan, the country’s third-highest civilian honor.

Mr Gopalakrishnan serves on the Board of Governors of Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST), is the Chairman, The Council, IISc Bangalore, and is the Chairman, Board of Governors of IIIT, Bangalore. He is the Chairman of the Vision Group on Information Technology of Karnataka Government, the Chairman of RBIH (Reserve Bank of India Innovation Hub) and the Chairman of CII Centre of Excellence in Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Start-ups (CIES).

Mr Gopalakrishnan is the chairman of Itihaasa Research and Digital which publishes history of Indian IT industry as “itihaasa” (http://www.itihaasa.com/) microsite as well as reports on industrial and academic research in India. He is the Co-author of “Against All Odds – The IT Story of India”.

Mr Gopalakrishnan invests in promoting research on Brain sciences, aging related disorders as well as investing in start-ups and start-up ecosystem. His family philanthropy is Pratiksha Trust and investment arm is Pratithi.

Mr. Gopalakrishnan holds master’s degrees in physics and computer science from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras. Kris is a Fellow of Indian National Academy of Engineers (INAE) and an Honorary Fellow of Institution of Electronics and Telecommunication Engineers (IETE) of India.