Anant Gupta promoted to CEO, president of HCL Tech

Street hopes for a smoother leadership transition, since Gupta elevated from within

When Vineet Nayar, vice-chairman and CEO of HCL Technologies announced the appointment of Anant Gupta as chief operating officer in July 2012, it was a clear indication the company was grooming him for a larger role.

Five months after, HCL Technologies today appointed Gupta as president and chief executive of the $4.4-billion global information technology services company.

However, for the 44-year-old who has been with the company for two decades, it’s “business as usual.”

“It’s only the change in designation,” he said. For most of the last year, the day-to-day functions were handled by Gupta while Nayar took over the bigger role of “mentoring the leadership team.”

Those close to Gupta, describe him as focused, passionate and a futurist leader, something true for Nayar as well. The street is hoping for a smoother leadership transition, since Gupta has been elevated from within the company.

Gupta joined HCL Tech in 1993 as a manager in the networks business unit of the infrastructure services division (ISD). He led the division’s foray into global markets through its remote infrastructure management services and was appointed its president in October 2008.

Gupta has been instrumental in scaling HCL ISD to a $1-billion business. More recent, he has guided HCL Tech’s growth in Continental Europe to a leading market share position and overseen industrialisation of applications service delivery. Over the years, Gupta has played a transformational role as a member of HCL’s core think tank.

He has also authored the world’s first ever book on RIM called ‘The Blackbook on RIM’.

The change is in line with a trend that has seen top decks being shuffled in the industry. But, this was a rare one for HCL Tech, for whom Nayar has been the face since 2007. The transition, unlike with the other peers, was well-accepted by the employees and market.

Other than TCS, where N Chandrasekaran took over as CEO in 2009 and Genpact's N V Tyagarajan taking over helm after Pramod Bhasin, all the others have seen some turmoil. This includes, S D Shibulal's appointment as CEO in August 2011, which clashed with its restructuring strategy, and T K Kurien's elevation as CEO of Wipro's IT business CEO in February 2011, taking over from joint CEOs Suresh Vaswani and Girish S Paranjape.

Speculations about Nayar's exit gained momentum after he sold his entire stake in the company in June last year. He held about 27 lakh shares, which he sold for Rs 133.58 crore.

Post the appointment, Nayar, would continue as vice chairman and joint managing director of the company and will continue as vice chairman thereafter, Gupta said. However, he refrained from commenting on whether Nayar would exit the company after 2013.