NANDAN NILEKANI HINTS AT GLOBAL HUNT FOR INFOSYS CEO
Says will stay as long as it takes to help the company regain lost ground
BENGALURU: Newly appointed Infosys Ltd chairman Nan dan Nile kan is aid on Friday he will stay at the firm “as long as it takes” to get it back on track, as the company’ s board moved to find a new CEO and me nd relations with founder NR Narayana Murthy .“I will not put a time-frame on this. I do hope it happens as fast as possible,” Nilekani said on an investor call, adding that he would step down the day he felt he was not needed anymore at Infosys.
On Friday, the board of Info sys as good as retracted a withering statement it released a week ago blaming Murthy for the departure of Sikka, as Nilekani stamped his authority on the company. “In recent days, there has been considerable discussion of the relationship between the Board of Directors of Info sys Limited and Mr NR Narayana Murthy who established the culture and ethos of Info sys, especially its culture of adhering to high corporate governance standards ,” the board said in a statement.
“The Board believes it to be unfortunate that various differences of opinion have arisen between Mr Murthy and the Board in the recent past. The Board wishes to express that it was not its intention to cause Mr M ur thy or any other affected person any personal distress or anguish while stating its point of view ,” Info sys said in a statement issued while Nilekani was addressing a press conference.
Mint reported on August 23 that Nilekani, who cancelled a trip to the US this week, was very upset at the board’s angry statement and that he had been meeting Murthy every day since.
Nilekani, 62, sent a clear signal that he is very much in charge at Infosys until a new CEO is appointed. “I’m not going to run this company based on comments on Twitter and television channels. That’s not going to happen. I’m here at the request of all shareholders to unravel a very complex situation and make sure that everybody is aligned -- and take this company, which is a national icon to its future. So, I’m not going to get pulled into statements that A said or B said. That’ s not the way that we are going to operate here.”
Earlier in the day, Nilekani indicated that one of his key goals would be to ensure that Infosys, Murthy and the other founders have a healthy relationship.
Ni lek a ni also indicated that he would take a tough approach in fixing all the recent corporate governance issues on the Info sys board, including a previous probe report on the company’s 2015 Panaya acquisition that Murthy has repeatedly insisted should be made public. On Friday, Ni lek a ni declined to directly answer when asked whether the company would make the probe report public and instead pointed to Infosys’s statement on Friday, which said that he would get a full briefing on all investigations and “the appropriate course of action will be decided.”
At the press conference, Nile kan is aid that his top priorities would be to identify Infosys’s next CEO and re-constitute the board. He reiterated what he had said during the earlier investor call, saying Infosys would embark on a global hunt for the next CEO and would consider both internal and external candidates and former Info sys alumni.
Investors and analysts welcomed Infosys’ s decision to bring back Nilekani and praised his address to investors on Friday.
“We believe the introduction of Mr Nandan Nilekani – co-founder and former CEO and MD of Info sys, as the chairman of the Board of Directors of Infosys is a positive development,” Aniruddha Bhosale, an analyst at Deutsche Bank, wrote in a note.