Infy's Kakal joins L&T Infotech as COO

Kakal is among several top-level Infosys employees who have exited company after return of co-founder N R Narayana Murthy

Former Infosys senior vice president Chandrashekar Kakal, who exited the Bangalore-based company last month, has joined L&T Infotech as its chief operating officer (COO).

He will also be inducted on the mid-size information technology (IT) services company's board.

"L&T Infotech has restructured its organisational structure, and with a view to accelerating profitable growth in the technology space, has appointed Kakal as its COO," the IT company's parent Larsen & Toubro said in a notice to the stock exchanges today.

At present L&T Infotech has joint chief executives set-up, Mukhesh Aghi heads the services cluster and Vivek Chopra heads the industrial cluster. Both report to V K Magappu, MD, L&T Infotech. Kakal who would also be reporting to Magappu will be the operational head.

"The two CE's we had are more focused on the sales operation. Kakal will be the person looking into the operations," said a senior official from the company.

Kakal is among the several top-level Infosys employees who have exited the company ever since the return of co-founder NR Narayana Murthy as executive chairman in June 2013.

 At the time of his exit from Infosys, Kakal had told Business standard: "I am exploring multiple options, including starting something of my own, as well as joining other corporate. There are some offers I have, but I cannot share any further details about this."

Kakal's move is in line with Ashok Vemuri, another former top-executive of Infosys, who has joined Infosys' smaller peer iGate as its chief executive officer.

In his last role at Infosys, Kakal was heading the India business unit of the company and was the global head of business IT services (BITS). He also held the additional responsibility of overseeing the consulting and systems integration businesses.