Infosys is understood to have reached out to Ashok Vemuri, a former top employee to take over as CEO after Vishal Sikka exited the software major recently.
Over the last two weeks, Infosys Nominations Committee, along with Egon Zehnder, which has been tasked to hire the CEO, is believed to be actively pursuing Vemuri, who is currently the CEO of Xerox Business Services. He formerly headed iGate Corporation, which was later acquired by Capgemini.
Sources close to Infosys said the negotiations are still at an early stage. “Infosys has reached out to him but we are still not sure whether he has made up his mind,” sources told
Another person directly in the know said Vemuri was being wooed for a combination of factors, apart from the fact that he knows the Infosys culture and headed its America offices, which was a $2 billion business, before joining iGate in 2014. “He took over iGate at a time when it was in turmoil, after former CEO Phaneesh Murthy had to exit the company due to compliance issues and successfully managed a transition and offer an exit route to Ashok Trivedi and Sunil Wadhwani, co-founders of iGate,” he said. Capgemini bought iGate for $4 billion in 2015.
The fact that he also has client connects in the US, most notably with marquee banking customers like Goldman Sachs could come in handy at a time when growth in large client accounts are slowing down at Infosys, said the source.
If Vemuri gives his nod, it will come in the backdrop of a public spat between co-founder NR Narayana Murthy and former CEO Sikka over alleged corporate governance-related issues. This resulted in Sikka resigning from the company. Subsequently, another co-founder, Nandan Nilekani was asked by shareholders to take over as Chairman of the company.
The former Board, which had tasked third-party investigators to look into the alleged corporate governance lapses, found no wrongdoing, something which Nilekani reiterated after announcing the recently-concluded second quarter results.
According to Peter Schumacher, CEO, Value Leadership Group, the biggest challenge facing a new CEO will be how to manage the relationship with Murthy. “The many risks vested in this challenge are surely hampering the search process,” he said.
“The new CEO cannot afford to ignore the co-founder’s concerns,” said Kris Lakshmikanth, CEO, Headhunters India.