Goparaju, head of Infosys Labs, quits after his team's strength quickly dwindles from 600 to 200.
Subrahmanyam (Subu) Goparaju (pictured, left), senior vice-president and head of Infosys Labs, the R&D arm of Infosys, has quit after rendering 25 years of service to the country’s second largest software firm.
Goparaju also headed the intellectual property cell (IP cell) of the company and was recently inducted to the company’s executive council (EC).
But, as of October, Infosys downsized the employee strength of Infosys Labs to 200 from 600, in a bid to focus more on traditional, billable IT services.
Citing pre-results ‘silent period’, Infosys declined to offer any reason for his exit, except saying that Goparaju’s last day at the firm will be December 27.
An Infosys spokesperson, however, said, “We would like to thank Subu for his contribution and leadership, especially in building Infosys Labs. Savio D’Souza, will manage Infosys Labs’s Service Differentiation Platforms group, and Dr Anindya Sircar will manage the IP cell. Both, Savio and Dr Sircar will report to Chandrashekar Kakal, (currently senior vice-president and global head of business IT services with 14 years of experience). Prasad Joshi will lead the technology centres of excellence and report to Pravin Rao.”
Goparaju’s exit comes just a month after the exit of Stephen Pratt, EC member and head of utilities and resources, North America. It also marks the seventh major exit from the EC in six months, a period that is seen as the second reign of Narayana Murthy (pictured, right), Infy’s executive chairman and head of its EC.
As of November, Infosys added 12 more to its EC, a body whose members are entitled to an extra yearly allowance of $150,000. Infy’s EC now has 30 members in all.
Goparaju’s exit comes just days after Murthy said he may cut short his stint at Infosys to three years from five he had signed up for in June, in case the company is able to find an able successor for the incumbent CEO S D Shibulal within that time-frame.
Industry observers said there is speculation that Shibu’s successor will likely be from within Infosys.
Goparaju joined Infosys in 1988, and had experience across IT consulting, solution delivery and customer management roles. He started Software Engineering and Technology Labs, since renamed Infosys Labs, in 2000. He also started the company’s IP cell in 2004 when IP became a key growth and differentiation strategy of the company. Additionally, he was responsible for the product R&D group of the company between 2010 and 2013.
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