For Madras, now Chennai, 1994 and 1995 were special years. Two reputable American corporations – Ford Motors and Dun & Bradstreet (D&B) – made a beeline to set up operations in the city. While the Ford story is well known, what’s more fascinating is Dun & Bradstreet’s long association with the city.

Lakshmi Narayanan.

Sometime in 1993, D&B decided to establish technology development centres in the Asia-Pacific region to harness the rich talent available at scale in this part of the world. Its intent was to establish centres in Russia, China and India and scale them. While nothing substantial came out of its Russia and China experiments, its centre in India – which went on to become Cognizant Technology Solutions (Cognizant) – came up in Chennai. This was largely due to the joint efforts of two business doyens, Kumar Mahadeva, the then Chairman of D&B in India and China, and Lakshmi Narayanan, who joined the fledgling company from Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and rooted for Chennai with ambassadorial passion.

Why did I call the 170-year-old D&B “reputable” even though it is not a household name either in the U.S. or in India? It is for two fascinating reasons.

First, four of D&B’s employees went on to become Presidents of the United States, a rare feat for any company globally. Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses Grant, Grover Cleveland and William McKinley worked with D&B as credit reporters, evaluators and analysts before they rose to the White House. It is an interesting coincidence that the current President of the United States, Donald Trump, is only the second in the nation’s rich history, after Grover Cleveland, to serve two non-consecutive terms. Equally interesting is the nugget that, in his inaugural address, Trump referenced only one past President: William McKinley!

Second, the companies in D&B’s fold were global leaders in their respective industries. Examples include Moody’s in sovereign and corporate credit rating, Gartner in technology research and advisory, Nielsen Media Research in media measurement, AC Nielsen in consumer market research, and IMS Health in health and clinical research and insights.

Cognizant was no different. Within a few years of its founding, Cognizant became the fastest-growing technology services company, serving a significant number of Global 2000 companies. Importantly, in the past three decades since its founding, it has employed more than one million people globally – largely in India and the U.S.

In the past decade, Cognizant emerged as the second-largest private sector employer in India, after TCS. Cognizant, today, has over 350,000 full-time employees globally, over 250,000 of whom are in India. With over 80,000 of them in Chennai and Coimbatore, Cognizant for a long time was the largest single-company employer in Tamil Nadu until it was overtaken by TCS. Importantly, about 40 to 50 percent of its workforce in Chennai and Coimbatore are women.

At a time when Madras is celebrating its 387th anniversary and America its 250th anniversary, it is fascinating to recollect the deep relationship between the two that helped create Cognizant, which today is not only the second-largest private employer in Chennai but also one of the Top 20 private employers among US-headquartered companies.

— Ramkumar Ramamoorthy, former Chairman and MD, Cognizant India