MindTree board appoints new chairman after Soota's exit

Mid-sized IT firm Mindtree today announced the appointment of Albert Hieronimus as its new Chairman with immediate effect.

Prior to joining MindTree, Hieronimus was the Chairman of Bosch.

MindTree CEO and MD Krishnakumar said, "In line with good governance practises, we are segregating the roles of the Chairman of the board and the company's CEO and MD".

In January this year, Ashok Soota had resigned as the executive chairman from the company to pursue a new business venture.

Soota, a co-founder, cited personal reasons for his resignation from the company and its Board. He was relieved from his duties on March 31, 2011.

MindTree offers IT services, product engineering services, independent testing and infrastructure management, and technical support.

Founded by former Wipro leaders like Soota and Subroto Bagchi, the IT and product engineering services firm had posted a 40 per cent year-on-year decline in its net profit at Rs 30.5 crore for Q3 FY11 from Rs 50.5 million in the same quarter previous fiscal.

Mindtree had acquired Kyocera India's R&D centre in October 2009 to work on IPR in the 4G wireless long-term evolution wireless infrastructure and the 3G smartphone.

However, a year later, the company said it would convert that business into R&D services for network infrastructure and handset firms.