JOIN US Infosys co-chairman Ravi Venkatesan on Friday changed his stance on offering a role to co-founder N R Narayana Murthy at the company.
“Unfortunately events of 48 hours have made it increasingly difficult at this point of time to consider that (offering a role to Murthy) actively,” Venkatesan said, covertly refering to the letter leaked by Murthy to sections of media on Thursday.
He said that the company was in dialogue with the founders for the past one year to find feasible solutions for the differences. “We were making reasonable progress on it, until quite recently,” he added.
Countering Murthy’s claims about Sikka not being a CEO material, Venkatesan said that over the year SIkka has developed in as “a high performing” CEO. He said that the financials of the company in the past three years are testimony to this fact.
Venkatesan also declined to take up the job of MD and CEO of the company. “I would like to clearly state that I have no interest in the job,” he said.
He also added, “I stopped being active CEO in 2011. It was a conscious decision of not being in the hot seat again.”
Fuelling the speculation of return of Murthy, Venkatesan last week had said that the board is open to give him a formal role if the latter wishes it.
Venkatesan, who assumed charge as co-chairman in April this year, had said that while the company’s founders and the board “vigorously agree” on most things, there are a couple of issues on which they have a different perspective, something that he hopes to resolve by dialogue.
Commenting on finding a new CEO, he said it is not going to be an easy task. “On the plus side we have the Infosys brand, momentum in business and a cohesive board. The clear worry is founder issues has to be out to bed decisively.”
He said the board has done whatever reasonable as an independent board. “It did not go down well with them. We have reached a situation that is not tenable. We have to give the new CEO time to focus on execution and transformation,” he said.