Infosys' head of $500 million innovation fund exits

BENGALURU: In another huge setback to Infosys CEO Vishal Sikka's strategy to strengthen the company's new digital and innovation capabilities, Yusuf Bashir, MD of the $500-million Infosys Innovation Fund, has resigned. The MIT-alumnus had worked closely with Sikka at SAP as VP of new products before joining Infosys in March 2015.

Together with another former SAP executive, Ritika Suri, Bashir was to help Infosys take a leap into the new digital world that has become important to global clients. Bashir, based in Palo Alto, had the mandate to identify and invest in early-stage companies doing cutting-edge work in areas including AI, machine learning, big data, cloud and analytics.

Acquisitions has been a key strategy used by Accenture, for instance, to build the new digital capabilities. Infosys was seen to be adopting a similar strategy in Sikka's first two years. There was a distinct acceleration in acquisitions and startup investments, due to the efforts of Suri and Bashir.

Suri made three major acquisitions, spending nearly $400 million. Bashir made 12 startup investments. But over the past year, the company has applied brakes. The first indication came when Suri was relieved of the M&A responsibility in July last year. No major acquisition has happened since. The last investment that Bashir made from the Innovation Fund was in December 2016.