Bangalore: Infosys director and former CFO V. Balakrishnan has quit the company, becoming the eighth senior executive of the IT services giant to leave in the six months since Murthy returned to the helm and began a process of restructuring.
Bala was considered a personal favourite of Murthy and one of three internal CEO candidates. With his exit, and that of Ashok Vemuri, who went on to become the CEO of iGate Corporation, Infosys’ Europe head B.G. Srinivas (BGS) is the lone internal candidate to succeed current CEO S.D. Shibulal when he retires.
Comments made by Murthy to US-based brokerage Cowen & Co., earlier this month seemed to indicate that he was looking to speed up the process of identifying the company’s next CEO, and perhaps himself exit well ahead of his five-year term.
‘CEO candidate’ Bala quits Infy
In a top-level departure from Infosys Limited that analysts said “made clearer” and perhaps even brought it “one step closer” to a new CEO for the company, V. Balakrishnan, a former CFO and a director on its board, announced his resignation from the Bengaluru IT outsourcing giant on Friday.
Balakrishnan, or Bala, was in charge of multiple businesses — Infosys BPO, Finacle, the India Business Unit and had only recently been appointed chairman of Lodestone, a European SAP consulting firm that Infosys acquired in late 2012.
Bala had been seen as a personal favourite of Infosys chairman N.R. Narayana Murthy and a top contender for the CEO’s job when current CEO S.D. Shibulal steps down.
With his exit, two of the three internal candidates for CEO have left the company — Ashok Vemuri, who was Infosys’ Americas head, left the company in August to become CEO of the much smaller outsourcing company, iGate Corporation. That leaves B.G. Srinivas (BGS), currently Infosys’ Europe head, as the lone internal candidate for CEO.
“While my heart will always be with Infosys, my mind wants to do something beyond Infosys,” Bala said. Analysts said the exit may have been prompted, or at least accelerated, by comments Mr Murthy made to US-based brokerage Cowen & Co. earlier this month in which he said that the next chief executive officer would have to have a grip on business models, technology and markets, while indicating Infosys expected to be able to find its candidate from within.
“With Bala’s exit, Infosys does lose some capabilities and his high level of integrity, commitment and passion. But he perhaps did not fit Mr Murthy’s description of the next CEO in some ways,” Zinnov Management Consulting’s V. Sundarraman said.
Former Infosys CFO and director T.V. Mohandas Pai expressed surprise at Bala’s resignation and said: “Bala is a big loss to Infosys. He has been there for 21 years. There must have been a mismatch of aspirations and Bala perhaps decided to do something outside the company”.
