The top level management exodus at the India’s second-largest software services exporter Infosys Ltd continues with senior vice-president of the company Chandrashekar Kakal stepping down from his position after serving the IT behemoth for over 14 years.
Kakal put in his papers on March 19 to resign from the company with effect from April 18, Infosys said in the filing to the stock exchanges. He was heading the company’s India business unit and overseeing application development and infrastructure management at the firm. He was also the member of company’s top operations decision-making body, the executive council.
He also served on the boards of Infosys BPO, Infosys China and Infosys Shanghai.
Since joining the Infosys Enterprise Solutions in 1999, Kakal played a key role in the company’s entry into the package implementation and related services market. In 2004, he was appointed global head of Enterprise Solutions which grew to account for more than 25 per cent of the company’s total service revenues under his leadership. Kakal was also instrumental in setting up the Hyderabad Development Centre in 2000.
Kakal holds a master’s in business administration, with specialisation in international business, from the Asian Institute of Technology, Bangkok, and a degree in mechanical engineering from Bangalore University, India. He also holds a graduate diploma in materials management from Indian Institute of Materials Management (IIMM).
With Kakal’s resignation, the IT firm has witnessed ninth top-level exit since executive chairman and founder NR Narayana Murthy returned to the company in June last year in order to steer back the fortune of Infosys which has been facing severe competition from players like Cognizant Technologies.
Since then there has been a series of top executive movements from the firm in what is believed to be linked with the restructuring initiated by Murthy.
The other recent top-level exits include those of Infosys director V Balakrishnan - who was the head of Infosys BPO, Finacle and India Business Unit and also served as chairman of Infosys Lodestone; global sales head Basab Pradhan; financial services head Sudhir Chaturvedi and Infosys labs head Subrahmanyam Goparaju, among others.
SD Shibulal, the current chief executive officer of the company, is scheduled to retire in March next year. Some of those who departed recently-including Ashok Vemuri, former global head of manufacturing and the Americas and Balakrishnan - were said to be in the line to become the next chief. Vemuri is currently CEO of iGate Corp, while Balakrishnan has joined Aam Aadmi Party.
(Edited by Joby Puthuparampil Johnson)
