MindTree is ten this week: the Bangalore-headquartered global IT Solutions company specializing in IT Services, Independent Testing, Infrastructure Management and Technical Support , Knowledge Services and Product Engineering, has been the fastest Indian IT Services Company to surpass the $100 Million revenue mark, and boasts customer base that includes more than 250 of the world;s top 200 companies.

MindTree was ranked No. 1 among the Most Admired Knowledge Enterprise (MAKE) India Award winners for the second consecutive year in 2008. It was started August 18, 1999, by seven Indian IT professionals, many of whom came from the senior ranks of Wipro - Ashok Soota, Subroto Bagchi, Krishnakumar Natarajan, S Janakiraman N.S.Parthasarathy, Kalyan Banerjee and Rostow Ravanan and 3 Americans - Anjan Lahiri, Scott Staples and Kamran Ozair.

Says MindTree Executive Chairman Ashok Soota , “MindTree was conceptualized in 1999 by its 10 co-founders with the objective of creating a different kind of company, through a unique consulting-led approach to our IT Services and Intellectual Property-led approach to our Product Engineering Services. We always remained true to our value system called CLASS (Caring, Learning, Achieving Sharing and Social Responsibility).” 

MindTree was among the youngest companies in the world to be assessed Level 5 in CMMi and P-CMM and the first venture capital-backed IT services company to be listed on the Indian stock exchanges in 2007
“Our Vision is to achieve revenues of $1 Billion by 2014” adds Soota, whom many credit with crafting MindTree’s rather special brand, based on a compulsive adherence to ethical and corporate practices and an informal approach to hierarchy within its walls.

Subroto Bagchi who became Vice Chairman on July 20 this year, wears another hat as “Gardener” -- a designation that seemed like something inspired by Voltaire: with a mandate to ‘ cultiver votre jardin’ or cultivate your garden ( of talents) like the French philosopher’s fictional hero Candide.

Indeed, the company moved, early, to the Global Village, an almost idyllic  locale  for a technology park, on the Bangalore-Mysore highway, where its labs are in the midst of a coconut grove.

In another instance of doing their own thing, the company adopted as its logo, a design created by , a student Chetan K.S,, who had motor and speech disability. The blue brush stroke was Chetan's way of communicating imagination. The red stood for action, the bright yellow bubbles represented joy. 

- Anand Parthasarathy, in Bangalore, Aug 18 2009