After Infosys' Narayan Murthy's 70-hour work week comments, which have plagued the discourse on work-life balance over the recent past, it is now the turn of Larsen & Toubro (L&T) Chairman & Managing Director SN Subrahmanyan to enter the discussion and debate with even abstruse expectation and desire to overwork employees.

The 90-Hour Work Week

Recently, while answering a question on working on Saturdays at an in-house L&T event, the head of one of the largest conglomerates in 21st century India, said that he regrets not being able to make his workers work on Sunday as well.

In addition, adding to the library of the 70-hour theory, Subrahmanyan added his own 90-hour theory, wherein he would want Indians to work for 90 hours a week, which would amount to 15 hours a day in a 6 week, working.

The L&T Veteran

This opinion of his has garnered a lot of traction in the past few days. In light of these developments, we take a look at who SN Subrahmanyan is.

Sekharipuram Narayanan Subrahmanyan or SN Subrahmanyan is the Chairman & Managing Director of Larsen & Toubro or L&T.

The 64-year-old took over the reins from L&T's previous boss and current Chairman Emeritus, Anil Manibhai Naik in July 2017.

He is also teh Vice Chairman on the Boards of LTIMindtree and L&T Technology Services.

In addition, he also heads the L&T Metro Rail (Hyderabad) Limited and Director and Chairperson of L&T Finance Holdings Ltd

Alma Mater

Born in Tamil Nadu capital Chennai on March 16 1960, he took his academic ambitions the National Institute of Technology, Kurukshetra, where attained his degree in in civil engineering.

From NIIT K he went to Symbiosis Institute of Business Management, Pune, here here achieved his postgraduate degree in Business Management.

Furthermore, he also had stint at London Business School.

Achievements

His journey with the conglomerate started in 1984, 40 years ago, and it took him about 30 years to climb the ladder to the top of the company.

Some of his accolades include being featured on the cover of Fortune magazine’s October 2023 edition as India’s Best CEO.

He is also the winner in the Infrastructure & Engineering category of the Business Today-PwC India’s Best CEOs ranking in March 2022.

He was bestowed with The Emergent CEO in the CEO Awards in 2019.

The L&T chief has also been featured in the ‘Top 50 Most Influential People’ List by Utilities Middle East.

From the time of his accession to the top in 2017, the shares of the flagship L&T have risen from Rs 1,179.25 per share in July 2017 to the current 3,505.00. This marks a 197 per cent jump in the share prices of the marquee entity over the past 7-8 years.