 "CEO-probable B G Srinivas quits Infy")
Srinivas’ resignation would be with effect from June 10, the company said.
According to experts, Srinivas’ resignation also indicates that Infosys might have decided on who would succeed Shibulal to be the company’s first non-founding CEO.
However, even as several experts view Srinivas’ exit brightening the chance of an external candidate taking up the top job, some believe the company might have chosen its next CEO from among the younger internal aspirants.
U B Pravin Rao, one of Infosys’ two presidents (besides Srinivas), is also considered a contender for the CEO post, but most experts say he might not be a suitable person to lead the company at a time it is faced with declining market share and pressure on profitability.
"The fact that Srinivas decided to leave, obviously, means he knew he was not going to be CEO,” said Headhunters India Chairman Kris Lakshmikanth. “It appears Infosys is going to opt for an external candidate... the options it has after Srinivas are not strong enough.”
Among the external candidates, Vishal Sikka, who recently resigned from the executive board of enterprise software product company SAP AG, is rumoured to be in the fray.
| ON EXIT ROUTE |
Major resignations since founder N R Narayana Murthy’s return to Infosys in June 2013
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Some sources said Infosys was seriously looking at young leaders to take up the CEO job. Among others, Senior Vice-Presidents Sandeep Dadlani (who heads the retail segment), Ravi Kumar S (who heads the insurance, cards and payments segment) and Manish Tandon (who heads life sciences globally and services in the US) are seen as top contenders.
Last month, Infosys had set the ball rolling to find a new CEO, with Shibulal announcing he would retire ahead of his superannuation in March 2015. The company had said its nominations panel would evaluate internal and external candidates for the job, with the help of corporate executive evaluation specialist, Development Dimensions International (DDI), and multinational executive search firm, Egon Zehnder.
The nominations committee at Infosys is headed by K V Kamath, lead independent director on the company's board, while Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw and R Seshasayee are the other members.
A “soft-spoken communicator”, as some of his colleagues called him, Srinivas was considered the most likely choice for the top job at the company for a couple of years. Even as some other early contenders, Ashok Vemuri and V Balakrishnan, quit over the past two years, Srinivas stayed on and took up more strategic roles at Infosys. This made several experts see him as the next CEO, even before Infosys began a formal procedure to look for a candidate.
Also, Srinivas is one of the highest-paid executives at the company. During 2013-14, he received a total compensation of $1.3 million (Rs 7.8 crore), including a salary of $844,453, bonus and incentives of $281,415 and other compensation of $154,143.
As a search for CEO gathered steam at Infosys in the past few months, many experts claimed Srinivas was prepared to take up the job.
"In last six month or so, whenever Srinivas made an appearance at Infosys’ conferences or meetings with the media or analysts, his body language reflected he was confident of becoming the CEO. I really wonder what went wrong,” said an analyst with a Mumbai-based brokerage asking not to be named. “I think the company has decided who the next CEO will be. It was obvious Srinivas would not work under anyone else as CEO. It is a great loss for Infosys and I hope they are able to justify this exit.”
While investors and analysts viewed Srinivas as the top choice to lead Infosys, a top headhunting source said Srinivas had been looking to move out of Infosys for some time now and had even held initial discussions with some smaller Infosys peers.