<p>"The Board of Directors will meet on April 30, 2011 to finalise plans for the company's leadership succession, post N R Narayana Murthy's retirement as Chairman of the Board in August 2011," the company had said.<br /><br />Current CEO S Gopalakrishnan is tipped to take over as chairman when Murthy retires, while present COO S D Shibulal is expected to be promoted to the post of chief executive officer.<br /><br />Infosys has a practice of founder members becoming chairman. The billion dollar question now is if the company will change this practice or opt for an outsider.<br /><br />The succession plans in the iconic company comes at a time when its not-so-exciting earning numbers have dampened the market expectations, while rivals like Tata Consultancy Services and HCL Technologies posted stellar results.<br /><br />The company registered lesser-than-expected 13.6 per cent growth in net profit at Rs 1,818 crore for in the last quarter of the previous fiscal.<br /><br />TCS and HCL Technologies, on the other hand, posted 31.1 per cent jump (Q4 FY'11) and 33 per cent (Q3 FY'11), respectively.<br /><br />The industry and markets have been keenly awaiting the succession plans at Infosys. More so, after the resignation of T V Mohandas Pai as Director and Head of Human Resources after putting in 17 years in the company. Pai was considered by many as the CEO material<br /><br />Murthy had stepped down as CEO in 2002, handing over office to co-founder Nandan Nilekani. Nilekani left the company in 2007 to join the Unique Identification Authority of India. Current CEO Gopalakrishnan took over the reins from Nilekani.<br />Infosys has also formed a nominations committee, comprising Professor Jeffery S Lehman, Deepak M Satwalekar (former MD and CEO of HDFC Standard Life Insurance) and KV Kamath (non-executive Chairman of the Board of Directors of ICICI Bank).<br />The committee is responsible for succession planning for the roles of chairman, CEO, COO and CFO of the company.</p>.<p>Pai's exit had raised questions about strife within the management. Pai was quoted in an interview criticising the selection process for the CEO at Infosys.<br /><br />He was quoted as saying that the board should assess a prospective candidate on whether he has the energy and fresh thinking required for the job and not just on experience.<br /><br />However, Pai later retracted his statement saying his comments were "general" in nature.<br /><br />After Murthy's exit, only two of the co-founders -- CEO S Gopalakrishnan and COO S D Shibulal -- will remain on the company board.<br /><br />Co-founder K Dinesh will also retire from the company, after Infosys' Annual General Meeting on June 11, 2011.<br /><br />Among the co-founders, Ashok Arora was the first to leave in the late 1980s, selling his stake. Afterwards, N S Raghavan left the company.<br /><br />Infosys was started in 1981 by seven entrepreneurs including Murthy, Nilekani, Gopalakrishnan, Shibulal and K Dinesh. The founders started the company with an initial investment of Rs 10,000. Today, the IT and consulting company has revenues of USD 6.04 billion.<br /><br />Headquartered in Bangalore, Infosys went public in 1993. It has a global footprint with 64 offices and 63 development centres across the US, the UK, India, China, Australia, Japan and Middle East among others.<br /><br />While promoters have a 16.04 per cent stake in the company, other shareholders include LIC (4.28 per cent), Oppenheimer Developing Markets Fund (2.19 per cent) and Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (1.93 per cent).<br /><br />Infosys and its subsidiaries had 1,30,820 employees as on March 31, 2011. </p>
<p>"The Board of Directors will meet on April 30, 2011 to finalise plans for the company's leadership succession, post N R Narayana Murthy's retirement as Chairman of the Board in August 2011," the company had said.<br /><br />Current CEO S Gopalakrishnan is tipped to take over as chairman when Murthy retires, while present COO S D Shibulal is expected to be promoted to the post of chief executive officer.<br /><br />Infosys has a practice of founder members becoming chairman. The billion dollar question now is if the company will change this practice or opt for an outsider.<br /><br />The succession plans in the iconic company comes at a time when its not-so-exciting earning numbers have dampened the market expectations, while rivals like Tata Consultancy Services and HCL Technologies posted stellar results.<br /><br />The company registered lesser-than-expected 13.6 per cent growth in net profit at Rs 1,818 crore for in the last quarter of the previous fiscal.<br /><br />TCS and HCL Technologies, on the other hand, posted 31.1 per cent jump (Q4 FY'11) and 33 per cent (Q3 FY'11), respectively.<br /><br />The industry and markets have been keenly awaiting the succession plans at Infosys. More so, after the resignation of T V Mohandas Pai as Director and Head of Human Resources after putting in 17 years in the company. Pai was considered by many as the CEO material<br /><br />Murthy had stepped down as CEO in 2002, handing over office to co-founder Nandan Nilekani. Nilekani left the company in 2007 to join the Unique Identification Authority of India. Current CEO Gopalakrishnan took over the reins from Nilekani.<br />Infosys has also formed a nominations committee, comprising Professor Jeffery S Lehman, Deepak M Satwalekar (former MD and CEO of HDFC Standard Life Insurance) and KV Kamath (non-executive Chairman of the Board of Directors of ICICI Bank).<br />The committee is responsible for succession planning for the roles of chairman, CEO, COO and CFO of the company.</p>.<p>Pai's exit had raised questions about strife within the management. Pai was quoted in an interview criticising the selection process for the CEO at Infosys.<br /><br />He was quoted as saying that the board should assess a prospective candidate on whether he has the energy and fresh thinking required for the job and not just on experience.<br /><br />However, Pai later retracted his statement saying his comments were "general" in nature.<br /><br />After Murthy's exit, only two of the co-founders -- CEO S Gopalakrishnan and COO S D Shibulal -- will remain on the company board.<br /><br />Co-founder K Dinesh will also retire from the company, after Infosys' Annual General Meeting on June 11, 2011.<br /><br />Among the co-founders, Ashok Arora was the first to leave in the late 1980s, selling his stake. Afterwards, N S Raghavan left the company.<br /><br />Infosys was started in 1981 by seven entrepreneurs including Murthy, Nilekani, Gopalakrishnan, Shibulal and K Dinesh. The founders started the company with an initial investment of Rs 10,000. Today, the IT and consulting company has revenues of USD 6.04 billion.<br /><br />Headquartered in Bangalore, Infosys went public in 1993. It has a global footprint with 64 offices and 63 development centres across the US, the UK, India, China, Australia, Japan and Middle East among others.<br /><br />While promoters have a 16.04 per cent stake in the company, other shareholders include LIC (4.28 per cent), Oppenheimer Developing Markets Fund (2.19 per cent) and Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (1.93 per cent).<br /><br />Infosys and its subsidiaries had 1,30,820 employees as on March 31, 2011. </p>