Students from 12 management institutes across the country who participated in the survey admire Murthy for being a visionary and for his value systems.
The B-school students named Infosys and Tata firms as the two most attractive Indian companies to work for. HLL, which occupied the top rank last year, has slipped to the third place.
Murthy, who was backed by 35 per cent of the students for the coveted slot, is ahead of Ratan Tata (16 per cent), chairman of Tata Group, who occupies the second position in the list of most admired business leaders.
Tata, who had a much lower rating last year, is admired for his leadership qualities by the respondents. Wipro chairman Azim Premji (12 per cent) occupied the third position.
According to the study, the Ambani brothers, though seem to have gone down the popularity charts, are still admired.
Others mentioned in the survey include Sunil Mittal, Kumaramangalam Birla, Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, Vijay Mallya, Ramdorai and Vivek Paul.
More from rediff