IT major Infosys on Wednesday witnessed yet another high-profile exit as its President and member of board B G Srinivas stepped down. It is the tenth major top-level exit since the company’s founder N R Narayana Murthy came out of retirement last June.
“B G Srinivas has been an integral part of Infosys and has played an important role in the company’s growth,” Infosys Ltd Executive Chairman N R Narayana Murthy said on Wednesday.
Srinivas (52) popularly known as BG was handling business from financial services, insurance, manufacturing, engineering services, energy and communications, Infosys Public Services, strategic global sourcing, and marketing and alliances at the time of his resignation.
“I thank Infosys for the wonderful opportunity given to me. My tenure at Infosys has been one of my most rewarding experiences, and I am proud to have contributed to the best growth story in the industry. I wish the board and Infosys the best of success in the future,” Srinivas said in a statement.
The resignation of Srinivas, who was tipped to be a front runner for the post of chief executive, comes even as Infosys has launched a hunt for a CEO from outside its own ranks before its current Chief Executive S D Shibulal resigns early next year.
Shibulal, who will turn 60 in January next year will be the last of the founder CEOs.
“B G Srinivas played a pivotal role in building the Enterprise Solutions Unit, strengthening our business in Europe and driving growth in key business verticals,” Shibulal said.
The exit of Srinivas comes on the heels of nine other top executives of the company in the past one year including Chandrashekhar Kakal, who quit as head of the India business unit in March. Other top-level executives who quit the company included member of the board V Balakrishnan and and head of Infosys Labs Subrahmanyam Goparaju in December last year, and Stephen Pratt, head of utilities and resources in North America in November 2013.
Ashok Vemuri company’s head for financial services and manufacturing in the US, Basab Pradhan the company’s global sales, marketing and alliances head and the US head of the Infosys financial services business Sudhir Chaturvedi too had announced their exits from the company earlier.
The exits followed a management upheaval after Murthy – who retired from the company at the age of 65 in 2011 – returned to Infosys in June 2013 as executive chairman to guide the company with his son Rohan Murty in tow as his executive assistant. The Infosys founder since his return to the chairman’s office has centralized all authority in the company.
In April, the company also announced that it had appointed Egon Zehnder, an executive search firm, to assist it in shortlisting external candidates for the job. The nominations committee will shortlist and evaluate both internal and external candidates, Infosys had stated in April.