Infosys BPO chief puts in papers

Amitabh Chaudhry, chief executive of Infosys Technologies' business process outsourcing arm has put in his papers.

He is understood to be taking up a bigger position at HDFC Standard Life Insurance a joint venture between HDFC and UK-based Standard Life, The exact nature of his next assignment is however not known. 

Chaudhary who took over as chief executive of Infosys BPO in March 2006, was tipped as a probable to occupy the top seat in Infosys after chief executive officer S Gopalakrishnan (better known as Kris), one of the founders of Infosys Technologies
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The company, a fully-owned unit of Infosys Technologies, offers finance and accounting, human resource and legal services outsourcing. The company's revenue shot 26 percent to $316 million in the year to March 2009.

The BPO boom is built on India's huge English-speaking workforce. However the sector has taken a hit following the global economic downturn which has crimped spending by companies.

According to industry watchers, Chaudhry who is known to be highly ambitious, successfully led the company's growth, especially during the recent global slowdown, by convincing clients to stay in, and introducing changes within the company to make it a more technology-driven organisation from being a pure back-office service provider.

He had recently announced that the back-office unit would hire 1,500-2000 people by the end of the current financial year.

Chaudhry is a graduate from the Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani and an MBA from IIM-Ahmedabad. He has been with financial institutions prior to his stint with Infosys. He headed the investment banking franchise for South East Asia with Credit Lyonnais Securities in Singapore