Murthy allays fears of leadership crisis

At a time when speculation was rife about its course after the organisational rejig last week, Infosys on Friday validated the changes, exuding strong faith in its leadership pipeline and gave a clear signal that the company was unperturbed by the slew of senior exits in the recent past.

In his first appearance before the media since his return to the Bangalore-based company in June last year, N R Narayana Murthy said it now had a ‘wonderful team of leaders,’ who would strive to make the organisation more robust and growth-oriented.

“It’s sad to see many excellent people leave the company for various reasons - some found passion different from the company, some had ambitions that the company could not match. But the beauty of this company is it had a large cadre of leadership,” said Murthy introducing the ‘enthusiastic’ and ‘young’ new leadership team.

“While we wish all the people that have left us the best, we are very confident that this company has a strong cadre of leaders and that will be not my worry at all,” he added.

Since Murthy’s return to the company, Infosys has seen eight senior exits at different points. This at a time when the firm was preparing itself for a new leader as S D Shibulal, chief executive officer and managing director, retires next year.

On January 3, Infosys announced a new organisational structure by creating the positions of two presidents; it appointed board

members B G Srinivas and U B Pravin Rao to those.

The company on Friday announced the next logical conclusion by announcing a new structure, giving added responsibilities to senior leaders who would report to the presidents.

According to the realignment, the go-to-market strategy for the Americas and Europe will be managed by seven industry segments, each with a segment head.

The industry segments will have integrated sales and delivery functions with separate profit and loss accounts.

“The purpose of this realignment is to create industry-leading growth, create business differentiation, strengthening the client centricity and to create market differentiation,” said Shibulal.

The company also said it is effecting some changes in business-enabling functions under which it created a new function - talent fulfilment, to be headed by H R Binod, who is also part of the chairman’s office.

The heads of education research, global immigration and talent planning and deployment would report to Binod, who in turn would report to Rao.

Chandrasekhar Kakal, a senior vice-president who was earlier heading global delivery, would now assist Srinath Batni, a board member who handles information security, computer and communication division, and purchase and communication design group.

“Eventually, these portfolios would be transitioned to Kakal when Srinath (Batni) retires from the company this year,” said Shibulal.

Additionally, Kakal would take the overall responsibility of the company’s India business unit, which is headed by Raghu Cavale.