# Lalit Surajmal Kanodia

Lalit Surajmal Kanodia (born 30 March 1941) is an Indian entrepreneur. He is the chairman of Datamatics Group of Companies, which he founded in 1975 as the national president of the Indo-American Chamber of Commerce and vice president of the Indian Merchants Chamber, which are both organizations of the Indian business community. He also served as president of the Management Consultants Association of India.

## Early life and education

Lalit Kanodia, born in Kolkata, India, is the son of Shri Surajmal Kanodia, a bullion merchant, and Chandravati Kanodia, a homemaker. His family moved to Mumbai in 1942.
Kanodia attended the Bombay Scottish School in Mumbai. Alongside his academics, he participated in athletics and was the captain of his school's football team. Kanodia studied science at Elphinstone College, Bombay University for two years. He was then admitted to the Indian Institute of Technology 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 his 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 Project MAC at MIT which built the Compatible Time-Sharing System and MULTICS (the first two multi-user computer operating systems and precursors to UNIX).

## Teaching

While at MIT, Kanodia taught a course on statistical decision theory to MBA students (1964–65). Later in India, he taught MBA students for two years (during 1968–70) at the Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies, Bombay University.

## Tata Consultancy Services

In 1965, JRD Tata, the then chairman of Tata Group was contemplating starting a software company. He asked Kanodia to study the feasibility of computerization within the Tata Group. Kanodia wrote three papers for the Tata Group which led to the automation of the Load Dispatch System of the Tata Electric Companies by Westinghouse, the Computerization of the electricity billing system of the company and the formation of a software development center. Kanodia then returned to MIT for his doctorate. He returned to India to form and head the software development center for the Tata Group. Kanodia formed the Tata Computer Center in 1967, later called Tata Consultancy Services in 1968.

## Consulting

While in the United States, Kanodia consulted for Arthur D. Little and the Ford Motor Company. In India, he had been a consultant to the State Bank of India, the Somani Group, and the Kamani Group of companies.

## Datamatics

Kanodia established his own group of companies called "Datamatics" in 1975 with 10 employees. 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 Kanodia formally started another company "Datamatics Technologies Limited" with a 100% focus on BPO and KPO services. The start of BPO services helped Datamatics spread its wings globally ,and it acquired SAZTEC and CorPay, two US-based companies in 1997 and 2003 respectively. Since then ,Datamatics has acquired other companies internationally. As of now, Lalit is the Group Chairman of Datamatics which comprises:
* Datamatics Global Services Ltd (A listed Company with BSE/NSE)
* CIGNEX Datamatics Technologies Ltd
* Lumina Datamatics Ltd
* Datamatics Staffing Services Ltd

## Personal life

Lalit has four children with his wife Asha Kanodia. The eldest son Rahul Kanodia is vice chairman and CEO of Datamatics Global Services and the youngest son Sameer Kanodia is an Executive Director. He also has two daughters, Aneesha and Amrita.

## Recognition

* Indian Affairs Indian of the Year Award for IT, Consulting and BPO services
* Special Achievement Award at Asia Pacific Entrepreneurship Awards
* Global Achiever Award for Business Excellence
* Award from the Prime Minister of India for the most innovative software product
Kanodia was president of the Management Consultants Association of India. He is the President of the Indo-American Chamber of Commerce. He is vice president of the Indian Merchants Chamber and chairman of its IT committee.
He was a member of the executive committee of NASSCOM.
He has been Chairman of the Electronic & Computer Software Export Promotion Council (Western Region). He joined the executive board of the Sloan School of Management, at MIT in 2008. He served as the Honorary Consul General of Chile in India from 2002 to 2014.