IT firms continue to take leaders on board to steer boat amid headwinds

NEW DELHI/BENGALURU: India's $245-billion IT sector continues to hire for leadership roles, even as entry-level recruitment has come to a standstill and overall headcount shrunk, as companies seek experienced hands to steer through the headwinds they are facing.

In the 12 months through September 2023, there have been as many as 5,700 senior executive movements (chief executives and 2 levels below) in the software exports and enterprise technology space, compared with 5,500 the same period a year earlier, as per data gathered by ET.

This was particularly evident in the quarter ended September 30, when the number increased 14% from a year earlier to 1,560. In comparison, overall hiring fell between 30% and 50% at IT companies in the quarter.


The leaders hired in the past year include at least eight CEOs, who have taken charge at IT majors including Tata Consultancy Services, Cognizant, Tech Mahindra and Genpact.

"This is quite a contrast with the overall hiring which is down by nearly 50%. This reflects that the top management and board members are confident of the future and want to inject new thinking, perspectives, and energy to have a transformative impact on their products and market share," CIEL HR chief executive Aditya Mishra told ET.

ET spoke with multiple senior executives who currently either have job offers or have recently switched jobs within the IT sector.

A senior executive who currently has two offers from top-tier IT services firms said there are more than enough opportunities at the senior level. "Any senior-level change is always likely once a company scales up...This churn at the leadership levels is happening across top and mid-tier IT companies," he said.

"Several IT executives today are looking at newer opportunities given the tech disruption across industries. The IT sector is at a cusp and hence is getting more professional, more organised and disciplined and hence the churn," another industry executive said on the condition of anonymity.

According to a CIEL study, 82% of the senior executives who changed jobs moved within the sector while 6% moved from the BFSI sector and 4% from the FMCG sector to IT.

CEOs and managing director position movements have also been witnessed at several small and midsize tech outsourcing and consulting firms, such as Xoriant (hired former HCLTech executive Sukamal Banerjee in March), Cyient (hired Karthikeyan Natarajan in April) and CitiusTech (hired Rajan Kohli from Wipro in April).