Major exits at Infosys during Sikka’s regime

Since Vishal Sikka assumed the role of CEO in August 2014 until his own resignation as CEO in August 2017, Infosys has witnessed numerous high-profile exits, with executives opting to leave India’s second largest IT firm in quick succession. Here, we look back at the list of top ex-employees who left the company during Sikka’s regime, leaving investors wondering.  Rajiv Bansal | October 2015: Rajiv Bansal, the company’s chief financial officer at the time, stepped down from his position in October 2015, though he remained as an advisor to Infosys’s board till the end of 2015. Infosys had appointed Bansal as the CFO in November 2012 when its previous CFO V. Balakrishnan shifted to Infosys BPO. Post his resignation, Bansal had to seek legal arbitration to get the remaining portion of the severance pay of Rs. 17 crore after it was suspended in 2016. Anup Uppadhayay | June 2016: Anup Uppadhayay, who resigned after the poor quarterly results for Infosys in June 2016, was vice-president and global head of strategic sales programs and had joined the company in July 1993. Before he took over strategic sales in 2016, he was CEO and MD of Infosys BPO for about one and a half years. Manish Tandon | July 2016: Manish Tandon quit Infosys after serving for 20 years in July 2016. He was at that time the executive VP and head of healthcare, insurance, and life sciences and also the head of high-tech at Infosys. Tandon had joined Infosys in 1996 and performed multiple roles in project management, sales, and client relationship management. Till 2013, Tandon had served as global delivery head of information technology services for the company’s FSI unit, which was responsible for nearly 35 percent of Infosys’s revenue. Samson David | July 2016: Another top exit came when Infosys’s head of cloud, infrastructure and security unit, Samson David resigned in July 2016. This was seen as a big setback to chief executive officer, Sikka who had recently assigned David with the additional responsibility of leading the company’s artificial intelligence platform Mana. David joined Infosys in 1992 and worked across various business units before being chosen by Sikka in 2014 to head the company’s infrastructure management services (IMS) division. David later joined HPE as a senior vice president. Vasudeva Nayak | July 2016: Yet another exit, in a string of quick successive departures in July 2016, took place when the executive director of global immigration, Vasudeva Nayak quit. He resigned just days after Infosys reported poor performance based on quarterly results and only a few hours post CEO Sikka sent a letter to his almost 2 lakh employees, describing what went wrong with Infosys’s performance. His tenure at Infosys lasted for 5 years. Sanjay Purohit | September 2016: Sanjay Purohit, executive vice president and former head of consulting at Infosys resigned in September 2016, having worked at Infosys for 16 years. Formerly, Purohit was also the head of the company’s Edgeverve unit but was shifted to the US to head the company’s consulting division. Later, after a disappointing quarter, he was moved out of the consulting business in July 2016.  David Kennedy | January 2017: The first high-profile executive to leave Infosys in 2017 was David Kennedy who worked as the executive vice president, general counsel, and chief compliance officer. According to the company’s statement, his exit was based on a mutually-agreed separation agreement. As a part of the separation as well as his employment agreements, Kennedy received generous severance payments of USD 8, 68,250 plus reimbursements for continuation coverage over a time of 12 months. The reason for his resignation was not revealed by Infosys. Sandeep Dadlani | June 2017: A major setback for the global IT player came when Sandeep Dadlani, one of the company’s four presidents, and head of Americas, resigned in June 2017. The exit was seen as a shocker as Dadlani had been given the additional responsibility of generating more business from the Infosys’s new software solutions, such as the AI platform Nia. Dadlani was also the global head of manufacturing, retail, consumer packaged goods, and logistics. Dadlani led businesses totaling to 34 percent of Infosys’s revenue and was also the chairman of Edgeverve, a subsidiary of Infosys. Ritika Suri | July 2017: Infosys’s former executive vice president Ritika Suri, whom CEO Vishal Sikka brought with him from SAP, resigned in July 2017. Suri, who was among the highest-paid executives, was in charge of Infosys’s corporate development and merger & acquisitions. She played the central role in the acquisition of the Israeli automation company, Panaya. She also led the Infosys’s USD 500 million venture fund. Her resignation came after allegations of irregularities in its acquisition of Panaya and e-com platform Skava. The allegations were later cleared after an independent investigation. Yusuf Bashir | July 2017: Soon after the resignation of Suri, Yusuf Bashir, Infosys’s managing director of the 500 million-dollar Innovation Fund, and vice president of new products, also resigned. Bashir, who is an MIT-alumnus, had also worked closely with Sikka at SAP before moving to Infosys. During his stint at Infosys, which started in March 2015, Bashir identified and invested in 12 startups doing innovative work in the fields of artificial intelligence, machine learning, big data, cloud and analytics to create cutting-edge IT solutions. Anirban Dey | July 2017: Anirban Dey, global head and chief business officer of Infosys’s wholly-owned unit EdgeVerve, also resigned in the month of July in 2017. Dey joined Infosys in March 2015 and headed sales, marketing, services and operations for EdgeVerve line of products, including core banking platform, Finacle, which amounted to USD 143.1 million revenue for Infosys as of June 2017. Anirban Dey had followed Sikka into Infosys, having left his position as India MD at SAP Labs in April 2015.