Exodus at top levels of Infy BPO
Bangalore: About six people at the vice-president and executive vice-president level, including two functional heads, have quit Infosys BPO in the past three-four months. The senior employees who have left the company include Ramit Sethi, business head of knowledge services unit, and Mahesh K Rao, V-P and SBU head, banking & capital markets. Others to quit at the vice-president level are Shamik Gupta, Satish Shenoy and Christine Bhaskaran. Last year chief financial officer Ramesh Kamat, operations head Rajiv Kuchal and Ram Akela, head of UK operations quit from the BPO of Infosys. The former CEO of Progeon, Akshaya Bhargava, quit early this year.

The exodus has everything to do with Infosys Technologies' decision to buy out Citigroup's 23 pc stake in its BPO arm, the erstwhile Progeon, and consolidate the operations with itself. However while it helped Infosys function better and offer better services in a seamless manner it left one group of stakeholders, the senior employees in Infosys BPO, dissatisfied. The allure of joining Progeon for senior and middle-level management professionals when it was started in '02, was that it would offer ESOPs and subsequently get listed on the bourses - and in the process perhaps repeat Infosys' iconic IPO success story. However, Infy's decision to buy out Citigroup's stake and cease treating the BPO arm as a standalone unit, which would go for an IPO, put paid to these plans.
Back to News Review index page