Infosys CEO-designate Vishal Sikka on Wednesday said that the company should focus more on innovation though there was no need to make any ‘grand changes’' to the existing strategy.
On the sidelines of an extra general meeting which was called to approve his appointment, the 47-year-old Sikka told reporters that it was important for Infosys to build systems that deliver. “There comes a time in the life of a company when the instinct and the intuition, the knowledge of the founder is replaced by processes, structure, principles and innovations that we put together. Pravin Rao (COO) and my endeavour will be to do that,” he said.
He also said software was becoming all pervasive with the world becoming fundamentally reshaped with software. Therefore, it gives Infosys a tremendous opportunity to help reshape that in every industry whether it is banks, financial services, oil & gas and manufacturing and in retail.
The EGM also bid farewell to Kris Gopalakrishnan and the current CEO SD Shibulal who will demit office on Thursday while Sikka will takeover from him the next day.
Apart from approving the appointment of Sikka as CEO and MD, shareholders also gave a nod for his appointment as a whole-time director between June 14, 2014 and June 13, 2019. It also approved the management’s decision to pay Sikka a salary of $5.08 million (₹30.48 crore) with stock options valued at $2 million (₹12 crore) a year. The compensation includes an annual base salary of $900,000 and an annual variable pay of $4.18 million.
The shareholders also approved the re-appointment of KV Kamath and R Seshasayee as independent directors.