Meet Ajoyendra Mukherjee, the techie who imbibed human touch at TCS

When Ajoyendra (Ajoy) Mukherjee talks about his plans post retirement on April 30, you will notice a striking resemblance with the plot of Swedish author Jonas Jonasson's bestseller — The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared.

The book’s fictitious protagonist Allan Karlsson walks away from his old-age home on his 100th birthday to travel across the globe, simply because he didn’t feel old enough. 

So will Mukherjee, except he’ll just turn 60 and leave behind a 39-year-old legacy with software giant Tata Consultancy Services (TCS).

“The best part of my career has been all the fascinating cultures and countries I have visited. But after a point, things get busy and you wake up in a country and go to sleep in another and there just isn’t enough time to explore,” Mukherjee, executive vice-president and head global HR, TCS, told Business Standard. He plans to revisit all the destinations he missed out and spend a well deserved break unwinding “while the body can still take it.”

Mukherjee joined TCS in 1980 after completing his BE in electrical & electronics engineering from BITS Pilani. In his 39-year career, he has worked in diverse roles starting as a developer and moving on to stints in product development and various management roles.

Yet, when he first got the TCS offer, the family reaction was very different from how parents today would react at their child landing a job in the premier tech company. “In 1980, government jobs were considered to be the safest option. So, the entire family, including my grandfather, debated on whether I should join. Finally, they decided that being a Tata company made it a secure enough choice,” he recalled. The shift to a fast-paced city like Mumbai from Lucknow itself was a major experience for him.

He has played a key role in several landmark projects in banking and financial services, utilities, manufacturing and government for TCS. He has also held key leadership positions and headed TCS’ operations in Switzerland and South Africa and was the global head of the energy & utilities team.  

Prior to taking over the HR function, he led TCS’ eastern India operations. Here, he was exposed to human resource challenges and prepared the foundation for his next big role. In 2008, he was appointed global head of human resource following S Padmanabhan's move to Tata Power as executive director, operations. Paddy, as he is known, had crossed paths with Mukherjee through various prior projects and recommended him for the role.

In a sector marked by a constant necessity to shift from one organisation to another to build professional portfolio, how does a person dedicate 39 years to one organisation? “It  won't be entirely honest to say that I always planned to spend my entire career here. But the constant flow of new engagements and challenges have kept up the motivation.”

In his role as the global HR head, TCS has achieved industry leading retention numbers with 11.3 per cent attrition rate as it focused on internal skill building. He steered the company through the IT sector recession of 2008-09 to make it among the top tech employers across major markets.

Mukherjee, who has watched the industry graduate from procedural programming to object-oriented programming to the current wave of agile and digital technology, says the only skill that has remained constant the in recruitment processes all these years is the “hunger to learn”. He cites former chief executive officer (CEO) FC Kohli as a father figure when he talks about the strong mentorship culture of the organisation.

“In many ways, Ajoy epitomises everything that TCS stands for. Over this period, he has seen everything practically and played every role possible. Unfortunately, this is going to be his last quarterly result with us and we wish him luck,” said managing director (MD) and CEO Rajesh Gopinathan as he ended the earnings press meet with a vote of thanks to Mukherjee.

Mukherjee lives in Kolkata with his wife and two daughters and plans to spend more time with his family. He also heads TCS’ CSR initiatives currently and hopes to contribute further to social causes after retirement.