Infosys shuffles top deck after posting abysmal results
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Infosys shuffled its top deck after posting absymal quarterly results in June, it has now appointed new heads for its merger and acquisitions (M&A) division and its cloud, infrastructure and security (CIS) arm said a report in the Mint.
Deepak Padaki will now head M&A for Infosys, replacing Ritika Suri, who has been tasked by chief executive officer Vishal Sikka to head large deals programmes at the company.
Interestingly, former SAP executive Suri, who joined Infosys after Sikka took over as the company’s first non-founder CEO in August 2014, replaced Padaki as head of the M&A division in 2014.
Narsimha Rao Mannepalli, senior vice-president and head of Hyderabad Center, has been tasked with heading the CIS division, according to an executive familiar with the development. One of the challenges ahead for Mannepalli will be to scale Infosys’s IMS practice, which reported a 10.6% revenue growth to $770 million in the year to March 2016.
The news comes days after India’s second-largest software services exporter cut its full-year revenue forecast and lost its head of CIS, Samson David, to Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co.
Infosys’s executive vice-president (EVP) and head of strategic sales programs, Anup Uppadhayay, has also resigned from the company, becoming the fifth EVP to leave the company since Sikka took over as CEO in August 2014.
An email sent to Infosys went unanswered.
Infosys posted a poor start to the financial year, recording a dollar revenue growth of 2.2% in the April-June period and lowering its annual revenue growth target to at-best 12.3%.
Under Suri, Infosys retained an aggressive buyout strategy as the company spent $390 million over the last 22 months to buy three firms, including automation technology provider Panaya, digital commerce firm Skava and Noah Consulting Llc.
During this time, Infosys also set up a $500 million innovation fund to pick minority stakes in start-ups focused on disruptive technologies. Infosys Innovation Fund has spent over $30 million in picking equity stakes in over eight start-ups, and is overseen by Yusuf Bashir, who earlier reported to Suri.
Uppadhayay, who was appointed as head of Infosys BPO in 2014, only to relinquish the post in May this year, left the company after he struggled to revive the fortunes of the BPO division.
The four EVPs who left the company earlier are chief financial officer Rajiv Bansal, head of manufacturing and EVP Sanjay Jalona, Infosys BPO head and EVP Gautam Thakkar, and Infosys EdgeVerve head and EVP Michael Reh.
Other than Sikka and chief operating officer U.B. Pravin Rao, Infosys has three presidents, 10 EVPs and about 25 senior vice-presidents (SVP).
Some analysts played down the impact of the executive departures.
“Under Vishal, Infosys has outperformed most of its Indian peers, yet as we have consistently suggested, there would be a bumpy ride to recovery. We are less concerned about changes in the executive team,” said Thomas Reuner, managing director of IT outsourcing research at HfS Research.
David will join Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co. as senior vice-president, enterprise services delivery.
