Infosys is the archetypal winner of globalisation: as inspiration for Thomas Friedman's The World Is Flat , the Indian IT services company shook up an industry and serves as a symbol for its home country's rush to modernity. Kris Gopalakrishnan, one of its co-founders, took over as chief executive last year at a challenging time for the company.

The softly spoken 53-year-old has to lead Infosys in its move to rival western computer services groups such as IBM and Accenture at the same time as fighting off their growing presence in India. One of his biggest moves was to snap up Axon, the UK consultancy, for £407m last month in the largest overseas acquisition so far by an Indian IT company.