Infosys board member and Americas head Ashok Vemuri resigns, another high-profile senior executive exit - Angel Broking

Infosys board member Ashok Vemuri, who was seen to be among contenders to succeed CEO S D Shibulal, has resigned. Mr. Ashok Vemuri was also the head of Infosys's America operations and the global head of its manufacturing and engineering services vertical. Ashok Vemuri was said to be one of the contenders for the CEO position in the company apart from two other board members, V Balakrishnan and BG Srinivas, to succeed SD Shibulal when he retires in 2015. This is the third high-profile exit at Infosys since the return of Mr. N R Narayana Murthy to the company as the executive chairman in June this year. In July this year, Basab Pradhan, the Global Head of Sales & Marketing for the company had left the company. This was followed by the resignation of Sudhir Chaturvedi, Senior VP and Head Financial Services for the Americas region, last week.

Sanjay Jalona, who was heading for manufacturing business for the company in North America, will take over as the global head of manufacturing. The company, however, did not make any announcement on who would be heading the North America geography. Ashok Vemuri's exit is quite significant from the point of view that he had not only spent over 14 years with the company, he has been heading the Americas region which accounts for close to 60% of the company's revenues. Till February last year, he had been managing the financial services and insurance vertical of the company which accounts for over a third of company's overall revenues. Under him, Infosys had maintained a significant lead over the competition in the BFSI segment. In February 2012, the company decided to make BG Srinivas as the head of BFSI business. Ashok Vemuri's exit comes at a time when the company is slowly trying to recover the lost grounds to the competitions during the last couple of years. While the company has thrown better that expected financial numbers in the 1QFY2014, it has still maintained its cautious stance over the recovery. Owing to recent run up in the stock price, we maintain our Neutral rating on the stock.

Source : Equity Bulls

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