New Infosys board faces will signal company's trajectory

BENGALURU: The boardroom shake-up at Infosys on Thursday signalled a truce to the blood-letting between the founders and the directors that cost the company and its shareholders dearly . While the exits of R Seshasayee and Jeff Lehman were on the cards along with that of Vishal Sikka, that of John Etchemendy was a bit of a surprise. As was Roopa Kudva and Ravi Venkatesan staying on.

Kudva is managing direc tor of Omidyar Network India Advisors and Omidyar Net work partner. Omidyar Network is a US-based philanthro pic investment firm. She's the head of Infosys' audit committee and earned the ire of the founders for not raising red flag over the now-controversial acquisitions made by Infosys. Ravi Venkatesan as co-chair is se en to have sanctioned the charge against founder Narayana Murthy with the sensationa missive the board released, at tacking him for Sikka's resig nation. This, despite three board members objecting to it.



Phil Fersht, CEO of HfS Re search, said, “This is a compro mise deal with Sesh, Jeff, John and Ravi out. You have to credi the board with moving swiftly to get this aggressively back on track. The hard work starts now, but at least they have a go vernance team to lead the way Next stop is to hire a stabilising CEO to move things forward.“

Murthy has been scathing about the board since the be ginning of this year, alleging a slip in governance stan dards on issues ranging from former CFO Rajiv Bansal's severance package and appointment of Punita Sinha as independent director to suspicions about the real motive behind the Panaya deal and the decision to raise Sikka's pay last year by 55%.

Peter Bendor-Samuel CEO of Everest Group, said “It's interesting that not all members are stepping down and this probably signals tha the board is not raising the white flag to Murthy who, I understand, they are very upset with. Nilekani's return to Infosys signals a commitment from the board to try and heal the divide between board members, board and founders and internally within the ranks of Infosys employees.“

Vivek Wadhwa, distinguished fellow at Carnegie Mellon University's College of Engineering, said, “I think that this is an opportunity to reinvent the company. It was clearly a mistake to try to turn an Indian company into a Silicon Valley company and to import America's worst compensation practices. Technology is advancing exponentially and markets are changing rapidly . Unless Indian IT seizes new opportunities and enters new markets, it will begin to implode. I have every confidence that Nandan understands these opportunities because of the work he has done over the last five years in building a new digital infrastructure for India. He is brilliant, visionary , and extraordinarily competent.“