S D Shibulal to be next Infosys CEO: report

Information technology firm Infosys Technologies may ask S D Shibulal, its chief operating officer and one of its founders, to take over as the chief executive officer of the company sometime in April this year, as part of a regular reshuffle of the top deck, says a report.

An Economic Times report quoting two people familiar with Infosys strategy said the current chief executive officer Kris Gopalakrishnan is expected to pass on the baton to Shibulal before April this year.

Infosys started following the practice of changing its chief executive regularly to give all the founders a shot at running the company. Gopalakrishnan took over from Nandan Nilekani in 2007. Nilekani had become chief executive of Infosys when N R Narayana Murthy stepped down in 2002.

"We are still debating this ... a majority of the board wants the chief executive officer transition to be separated and be done ahead of Murthy's departure," one of the persons said last week.

Murthy, chief mentor of Infosys, is expected to retire from the company in August this year. "This will ensure that the transition is smooth and the management has enough bandwidth to deal with Murthy's August departure," the person added.

At a time when demand for outsourcing is gaining momentum, India's top tech firms are preparing to compete more aggressively with global rivals by putting a leaner, simpler leadership structure. Last month, Wipro replaced its joint chief executives with T K Kurien after the company lagged rivals in performance over the past few quarters.
 
"This is the make or break year for the Indian IT sector. Companies need to push more aggressively and change their existing models - it's just like changing the engines when a plane is in flight," the chief executive of one of the top five IT companies told the newspaper.