Shibulal's journey with Infosys started in 1981
Shibulal is said to be the richest Ezhava in the world and was 71 in the Forbes list of the richest Indians in 2009.

He is a co-founder and member of the Board of Directors of Infosys Technologies Limited. Shibu, as he is fondly called, has over three decades of IT leadership experience. He has played a pivotal role in the Infosys journey and was instrumental in the evolution of the Global Delivery Model which is now the de-facto industry standard for delivery for outsourced IT services.

Shibu is famous as a gadget freak within Infosys. The story goes that when Kumari Shibulal first entered her marital home in Alleppey, Kerala, her father-in-law, the late C.K. Damodaran, welcomed the young bride with an unusual gift. He gave her a small, beat-up radio, with a tangle of wires sticking out from its case, and said, "This is what your husband made as a boy." Turning the dial, he smiled, "Look, it still works!"

According to a newspaper article, Shibu recently cobbled together two devices, Slingbox and TiVo, so that his daughter Shruti can enjoy her favourite TV shows live from the US, in their Bangalore home.

The fascination with technology started during childhood for Shibu. At TD High School in Alleppey in the 1970s, Shibu would pore over diagrams in the magazine, Science Student, using them to build motion and sound sensors that would turn on a light, or a small fan.

Later, living in the US on a shoestring budget, Shibu simply couldn't afford gadgets, so he assembled them with different parts from a RadioShack store. Even before PDAs were invented, Shibu had one which he integrated himself. "When I have a need, I figure out a solution and integrate it. Now, I do it almost by intuition," he told a newspaper interviewer.

Among Shibu's favourite devices is his PDA. It's a large screen, a mini notebook, a mobile phone, with mobile Internet and GPS, all rolled into one.

Shibu started his Infosys journey in 1981 by leading its project management, followed by client relationships in North American for a decade. He followed this with a five-year sabbatical with Sun Microsystems between 1991 and 1996, where he was responsible for designing and implementing their first e-commerce application. In 1997, on his return to Infosys, Shibu established and headed the Internet Consultancy practice. He moved on to serve several leadership roles at the group level, first as the Worldwide Head of Customer Delivery and later as Group Head, Worldwide Sales and Customer Delivery.

On June 22, 2007, Shibu took over from S. Gopalakrishnan as Chief Operating Officer. According to the company website, Shibu's focus has been on increasing competitiveness, improving customer experience, enhancing employee engagement and increasing the depth of services.

Shibu received a master's degree in Physics from the University of Kerala and a MS in Computer Science from the University of Boston. He is a member of several international forums, namely the International Board of Foundation, Globethics.net, the global Corporate Governance Forum's Private Sector Advisory Group and the Metropolitan College Dean's advisory Board, Boston University.