In yet another leadership rejig, nine executive officers to steer Infosys

Infosys, India's second-largest IT firm, has announced the appointment of nine executive officers, effective April 1, the day its 30-member executive council stands dissolved.
The nine executive officers include chairman N R Narayana Murthy, CEO and managing director S D Shibulal, vice chairman S Gopalakrishnan, CFO Rajiv Bansal, board member Srinath Batni, Presidents Pravin Rao and B G Srinivas, chief risk officer and company secretary Parvatheesam K and group head (human resource development) Srikantan Moorthy.
The announcement comes after several leadership rejigs in the last nine months when the founder Narayana Murthy retook the reins as executive chairman.
Infosys had twice expanded its executive council in August and October last year, adding 15 new members to bring its total strength to 30, with annual salaries of $150,000.
However, two months later in January, Infosys management announced dissolution of the council, effective April 1, and creation of two new presidential roles – for global delivery and global markets.
During all the reshuffle, Infosys saw exit of nine senior executives – the most recent being that of Board member and senior vice-president, Chandrashekar Kakal just last week.
With Narayana Murthy not rueing the exits and predicting more while warning that non-performance will not be tolerated has led industry watchers to question if NRN- led cost-cutting drive was all about letting go of top-heavy management.
Ankita Somani, IT analyst with Angel Broking, said, "NRN's experimentation with various leadership structures has been growing lately, while top-level attrition has not come down. This has led to a void in the management bandwidth, and very visible cost-cutting – but only in terms of downsizing staff."
She said, "Another concern is the fact that while earlier the exits did not impact the company's bottomline, now client mining is also being impacted, with the loss of senior executives in strategic client-facing roles. Stability and long-term visibility in terms of how the company is placed is urgently required."
That the organisational restructuring is negatively impacting Infosys's growth was hinted in the recent announcement of Infy management that it would only be able to meet the lower end of its fiscal 2014 guidance of 11.5-12%, and the softness would continue in the next fiscal as well.
This led some industry experts to question NRN's confidence in Infy's turnaround, given that this 'downgrade' came after only two quarters of better-than-expected growth by Infy after NRN's return.
However, some said there's nothing much to read into Friday's announcement.
Nitin Padmanabhan, analyst with Espirito Santo Securities, said, "Since the nine executive officers are in existing leadership roles, this announcement by Infy merely seeks to create a more linear and clean structure, to highlight the responsibility of these members for their respective profiles."