In the last few months Infosys has lost a number of senior people. The last among them has been Bala, the erstwhile CFO & current Head BPO, Finacle, India & Chairman Lodestone.
The other significant recent ones are Basab Pradhan , Head Global Sales, Sudhir Chaturvedi, Head US BSFI, H Andrade Latam BPO, Karthik Jayaraman, BPO Australia, Stephen Pratt Head Utilities , Resources North America, S Goparaju, Head Infosys Labs & Ashok Vemuri , Head North America & Manufacturing.
Though this is an excellent top management talent pool of people to let go but at times pruning is essential. When the organization achieves a certain scale , the old leaves & dead cells need to give way for talent below to unleash in its own right. They need to move away as they may have been the best in their times but having done the job lingering too long could easily impede the career , growth and aspirations of people below.
If likes of Ganguly, Dravid, Laxman & Kumble had not retired , likes of Harbhajan Gambhir, Shewag not dropped and even Sachin Tendulkar not finally given a farewell, how would we have seen and admired the likes of swash buckling Shikhar Dhawan, fluent Pujara, mercurial Virat Kohli, and stable Rahane .
With the rich experience, slowing reflexes & remaining talent oldies would have still managed a decent show but not a great one and what would happen when its time to go a large vacuum looms.
Bala in addition to being an extremely competent CFO and a blue eyed boy of Murthy was even touted to be in line for the CEO position. In my opinion it would have been a mistake if he were to become a CEO. He is a conservative accountant with a keen eye on numbers which may be good for the margins but not for business at times. Though he may have faced customers but needed to be more fluent in the true sense of a salesman.
With the exception of Ashok Vemuri, all others may have a moderate to insignificant short term revenue impact but will prove good for the organization in long term. Ashok had a decent opening at hand and chose to encash that rather than wait for Infosys succession opportunity, which may , may not come his way in future.
Infosys is a very large organization which prides itself for its large talent pool, structured succession planning (2 identified replacements for every single role) , growth opportunities to further aspirations, these exits are normal.
In my opinion Murthy’s return and his chairman’s office think tank was a timely invigorating event which will lead to the revival of Infosys , a true Infy Version 2.
