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Vishal Sikka as Infosys CEO: From controversy over salary to resignation letter
Vishal Sikka became the first non-founder CEO of Infosys when he succeeded NR Narayana Murthy in 2014. Key points to know about his controversial stint as Infosys boss.
Vishal Sikka has resigned as managing director and chief executive of Infosys, blaming “a continuous stream of distractions and disruptions” for his decision.
Sikka, a former member of the executive board at German software firm SAP, took the top job at Infosys in 2014, becoming the first CEO not to be a founder. However, soon he was in troubled waters. Sore points between the Infosys board and the company’s founders included corporate governance and Sikka’s salary.
Here are key points to know about Sikka’s controversial stint as Infosys boss:
1. Infosys’ legendary founder NR Narayana Murthy claimed in an email to some of his advisors that he had been told by at least three independent directors of the company that Sikka was more chief technology officer (CTO) material than CEO material, Mint reported on Thursday.
2. Murthy has publicly lambasted Infosys in the past six to seven months for lapses in corporate governance (allegations the company has denied repeatedly). He criticised the board for failing to uphold the company’s governance standards and not creating “checks and balances required in any well-run company”.
3. A Hindustan Times report in February noted that Sikka had changed the way Infosys works: overhauling the organisational structure, increasing the thrust on artificial intelligence and setting the goal for 2020: achieve $20 billion in revenue at 30 per cent net margin (23 per cent) and revenue per employee of $80,000 ($49,000).
4. A Mint report in August noted that Infosys was in a Mexican stand-off between founder-promoters, led by Murthy and the company’s board (led by R Seshasayee) and management led by Sikka. Sikka and Murthy have not met or spoken for close to five months, the report said.
5. A Mint report says 10 senior level executives holdind the rank of associate vice president and above have quit since March 2017 last year.
6. Infosys had an ambitious target of more than doubling its revenue to $20 billion by March 2021, but the company’s 2016-17 annual report made no mention of the targeted goals, not even as a footnote.
7. But Sikka did deliver: Since outlining this target, Sikka steered Infosys to dollar revenue growth of 9.1% in 2015-16 and 7.4% in 2016-17. A Mint report notes that for the second consecutive year, Infosys will grow faster than rivals TCS and Wipro.
8. Infosys was once the poster boy of the $140 billion IT industry, but TCS, Wipro, Cognizant, and other companies have chipped off its clients. Sikka was transforming the company towards areas of automation, internet of things, and analytics. “I am a kshatriya warrior. I am here to stay and fight,” he said in a TV interview in February.
9. “It is true that I could be doing a far less stressful job for far more money much more easily. There is no doubt about that,” Sikka told Hindustan Times in an interview last year.
