Infosys to have nine executive officers

Infosys, the one time IT bellwether, which recently decided to disband its executive council said yesterday that it would have nine executive officers, including chairman and founder NR Narayana Murthy and chief executive SD Shibulal, effective 1 April, LiveMint reported.

The announcement follows months after the appointment of BG Srinivas and UB Pravin Rao as presidents of the company and disbanding of the executive council, the company's highest decision-making body, as part of the massive organisational overhaul that chairman Murthy had undertaken to revive the flagging fortunes of the former sector bellwether, the report said.

The other executive officers are co-founder and vice chairman S Gopalakrishnan, board member and delivery excellence head Srinath Batni due to retire later this year, Srinivas and Pravin Rao, finance chief Rajiv Bansal, company secretary and chief risk officer Parvatheesam Kanchinadham and human resources head Srikantan Moorthy.

The company's executive council would cease to exist from 1 April, as per the company's earlier announcement.

The overhaul is being undertaken at a time when Infosys was witnessing an unprecedented exodus of top executives, with at least nine senior executives, including potential successors to CEO Shibulal such as Ashok Vemuri and V Balakrishnan, having quit since Murthy's returned to Infosys in June at the board's behest.

Meanwhile, the company once known for its corporate governance in India, now finds itself in a list of companies that according to a leading brokerage firm comprise the 'Underbelly of Indian IT'.

According to the firm Ambit Capital, several developments in recent times had lowered governance standards at Infosys, and according to the firm the market was yet to discount these appropriately.

Among the developments seen by many to be not consistent with the firm's image was the return of co-founder N R Narayana Murthy at the helm as executive chairman last June, a move that ran counter to the company's ''well-articulated policy of executives retiring at the age of 60 years".

"More surprising was (son) Rohan Murty's entry into Infosys as NRN's executive assistant. Whilst this is a position of power, but not of control, the manner in which Rohan Murty was brought in raised eyebrows to put it mildly," Ankur Rudra and Nitin Jain of Ambit Capital said in the report. "All founders have time and again mentioned about not letting family manage the business," the report noted.