There has been a significant corporate leadership reshuffle in the Indian IT sector in the past couple of weeks.
While Rajesh Gopinathan, managing director and CEO of India's largest IT company, Tata Consultancy Service (TCS) has resigned, the president of India’s second-largest IT company Infosys, Mohit Joshi has moved to Tech Mahindra as MD and CEO.
Last week, Sukamal Banerjee, Corporate VP of HCL Technology and part of the company’s core leadership team, also quit, joining as CEO of the US-based engineering services firm Xoriant.
Rejig at TCS
Ending his 22-year career in TCS, Gopinathan tendered his resignation on March 16, to “pursue other interests” a year after he was re-appointed as CEO till February 2027.
There has been some background chatter about a major difference of opinion about the direction being taken by the software giant, between Gopinathan and the Tata Group holding company Tata Sons.
The software services arm of the Tata group has over 613,000 consultants in 55 countries. The company generated consolidated revenues of US$27.18 billion (S$36.46 billion) in 2022.
The company has appointed another TCS veteran, K. Krithivasan as the CEO-designate.
Krithivasan, who joined TCS in 1989, is currently TCS’s President and global head of the banking, financial services, and insurance (BFSI) business group.
Krithivasan will be appointed as the Managing Director and CEO in the next financial year, the company said. He has held various leadership roles in delivery, customer relationship management, large program management and sales.
Krithivasan is also a member of the Board of Directors of Uruguay-based TCS Iberoamerica, TCS Ireland and the supervisory board of TCS Technology Solutions AG.
Changes in Infosys
Joshi’s exit from Infosys on March 11, after a 22-year stint, is the second big exit from the company in recent times, after Ravi Kumar S left to join as the CEO of the American IT services company Cognizant.
Joshi, as well as Kumar were both viewed as possible successors to Infosys' current CEO Salil Parekh.
With clients in over 50 countries, Infosys has over 300,000 employees.
Joshi was also the chairman of EdgeVerve - a wholly-owned subsidiary of Infosys that offers enterprise software platforms and solutions on Robotic Process Automation (RPA), Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Banking.
Joshi will succeed CP Gurnani at Tech Mahindra, a US$6 billion company with 158,000 employees.
Gurnani will retire on December 19, 2023.
At Infosys, Joshi was responsible for the company’s global financial services and healthcare business, including its well-regarded banking platform Finacle.
He also led sales operations and transformation, took executive responsibility for all large deals, and was in charge of the company’s internal CIO function and the Infosys Knowledge Institute - the research and thought leadership arm of Infosys.
HCL Technologies
Banerjee, who was leading HCL Technologies' Engineering and R&D Services, quit after a 27-year career with the company to join as CEO of Xoriant.
Xoriant provides product development, engineering, and consulting services for technology startups and mid-size to large corporations.
Banerjee held several leadership roles at HCL Technologies and worked across Digital and Engineering Services, where he oversaw global operations, leading a team of 20,000+ engineers across 30+ countries.
Xoriant was recently acquired by ChrysCapital – an Indian private equity firm.
