After being sacked by Infosys on charges of sexual harassment, Murthy undergoes similar humiliation by his second employer.
Phaneesh Murthy, the CEO and President of iGate Global Solutions, a leading IT company, was sacked after allegations of sexual harassment from his female colleague Araceli Roiz, Head of Investor Relations at iGate on 21st May.
Murthy is an IIT-Chennai graduate holding an MBA degree from IIM-Ahmedabad.
This is the second time that a complaint has been lodged in his name on charges of sexual harassment, the first being filed in 2003 by his former executive secretary Rekha Maximovitch.
Murthy termed those allegations as baseless and instead accused Maximovitch of taking advantage of the public news reports. His then employer Infosys, made a settlement with Maximovitch out of court for US $3 million.
Phaneesh Murthy's glistening career has won him a lot of media attention. In 2000, he was made the director of Infosys, the company he started work with immediately after graduating from IIM-A in 1987.
But a year after, he was sacked.
After being expelled by the second biggest software services exporter, he founded Quintant, another IT company. In 2003, after Quintant was bought by iGate, Murthy joined iGate's flagship company, iGate Global Solutions in Whitefield in Bangalore.
He played a prime role in restructuring iGate and became the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and President in 2006.
He had been an important part in positioning the services companies under the iGate Global umbrella, thereby resulting in synergies between the various service offerings of iGate Global Solutions Ltd.
Subsequently, Murthy collaborated with Apax Partners, a private equity investment group for iGate's $1.2 billion purchase of Indian rival Patni Computer Systems. The success of this deal made iGate one of India's largest IT companies.
On 21st May 2013, the board of directors of iGate decided to sack Murthy for the following reasons:
- Murthy had a relationship with a subordinate employee of the firm, Araceli Roiz. He went against the rules of the company by not informing it about his relationship with an employee.
- Roiz, 31, also made allegations of sexual harassment against Murthy.
iGate has appointed Gerhard Watzinger as the interim President of the firm in place of Phaneesh Murthy. Watzinger, 52, is an IT industry veteran, who previously served as an executive at iGate from 1998 to 2003.
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