Bangalore: India’s second largest IT firm Infosys Ltd lost another senior executive with its president and board member B.G. Srinivas resigning Wednesday.
“The resignation of Srinivas will be effective June 10,” the $8.3-billion global software major said in a statement here.
Tipped to have been in race for the new executive post as an internal candidate after incumbent and co-founder S.D. Shibulal retires early 2015, Srinivas was elevated to the newly created president’s post in January along with another board member U B Pravin Rao.
“Srinivas has been an integral part of Infosys and has played an important role in the company’s growth. The board and every Infoscion thank him for his wonderful contribution and wish him great success in his future endeavours,” Infosys co-founder and executive chairman N.R. Narayana Murthy said in the statement.
Since Murthy returned to head the company June 1, 2013, with his son Rohan Murthy as his executive assistant, at least 10 senior executives, including a couple of directors resigned for various reasons.
The board of directors placed on record its deep sense of appreciation for the services rendered by Srinivas during his tenure as member and for his contribution to the company.
“I thank Infosys for the wonderful opportunity given to me. My tenure at the company has been one of my most rewarding experiences, and I am proud to have contributed to the best growth story in the industry,” Srinivas said.
Shibulal said Srinivas played a pivotal role in building the enterprise solutions unit and strengthened the company’s business in Europe besides driving growth in key business verticals.
The city-based company also lost a whopping 36,258 people last fiscal (2013-14) despite salary hikes and promotions.
With Shibulal desiring to exit in January ahead of his retirement in March 2015, the company asked its nomination board 11 to short-list and evaluate an internal slate of candidates with the assistance of Development Dimensions International (DDI), a company specialising in corporate executive evaluations.
The company’s board had also appointed Egon Zehnder, an executive search firm, to assist the committee in identifying an external list of candidates to succeed Shibulal.
“In any company, when there are changes in the management, a few exits are bound to happen. At this point in time, it is very important for Infosys to get a new chief executive in place and get things back on track,” former Infosys board member V. Balakrishnan told IANS here.
Balakrishnan, who quit the company Jan 1 and joined the Aam Admi Party, contested the recent Lok Sabha elections from the Bangalore Central constituency but lost to BJP’s P.C. Mohan.
The nominations committee is headed by K.V. Kamath, a board member, who succeeded Murthy as co-chairman in August 2011 on the latter’s retirement but resigned June 1 2013, when Murthy returned to head the company again.
Expressing anguish over Srinivas’ resignation, former Infosys board member and Manipal Global Education chairman T.V. Mohandas Pai said a generation of leaders left the company after Murthy returned year ago.
“I am shocked by Srinivas quitting, as it will create a vacuum in the company. I am sad at the way Infosys has been run in the last two years. It appears Murthy’s leadership legacy has not worked and the board owes an explanation for the top level exits over the past year,” Pai told IANS.
Murthy co-founded the blue-chip company in 1981 along with N.S. Raghavan, S. Gopalakrishnan, Nandan Nilekani, Shibulal and K. Dinesh, who resigned in April 2011.