Dr. Byrraju Ramalinga Raju (born September 16, 1954) was the founder and Chairman of Satyam Computers until January 7, 2009 when he resigned from the Satyam board after admitting to corporate fraud. Satyam was created by Ramalinga Raju and others and was until recently perceived to be amongst the top Indian IT vendors. Raju has allegedly admitted overstating its cash reserves by one billion US dollars.
Raju was born to Byrraju Satyanarayana Raju in Bhimavaram. He did his B.Com from Andhra Loyola College at Vijayawada prior to receiving an MBA degree from Ohio University. He has attended the Owner/President course at Harvard. For his achievements and contribution to society, he has been awarded Doctorate by Anna University Chennai on 14 Dec 2007. He has two brothers and a sister. Raju is married to Mrs. Nandini. They have two sons, Mr.Teja Raju and Mr.Rama Raju, and a daughter, Mrs. Deepti, who is married.
Raju founded Satyam in 1987 after venturing earlier into other businesses such as construction and textiles. Some of them are reported to be failed ventures. He learned a great deal during his time at OU and in the United States. During that time he foresaw the upcoming trend of outsourcing and the future prominence of computers. He started an IT company with 20 employees and bagged IT projects, mostly from US companies. Satyam rapidly developed and became a multinational company with thousands of employees spread over many countries. Raju showed a strong social orientation and has been furthering the cause of social transformation through Byrraju Foundation and EMRIEMRI.
A botched acquisition attempt involving the company Maytas in December 2008 led to a plunge in the share price of Satyam. In January 2009, Raju indicated that Satyam's accounts had been falsified over a number of years. He admitted to an accounting fraud to the tune of 7000 crore Rupees or 950 million pounds and resigned from the Satyam board on January 7, 2009. In his letter of resignation, Raju described how a cover-up for a poor quarterly performance escalated: "It was like riding a tiger, not knowing how to get off without being eaten." Ragu and his brother, B Rama Raju, were then arrested by Andhra Pradesh police on charges of criminal breach of trust, criminal conspiracy, cheating, falsification of records and forgery and faces up to ten years in prison if convicted of misleading investors.
