Mindtree sees surge in senior exits

Around 6 vice-presidents and senior vice-presidents have left the company since January this year

Mindtree, a mid-sized information technology (IT) services company based in Bengaluru, is seeing an unexpected surge in exits of its senior level executives in the past three months.

At least half-a-dozen senior executives — of the level of vice-presidents (VPs) and senior VPs, responsible for managing important regions, service lines or functions — are learnt to have put in their papers.

According to sources close to the development, the list of senior executives who are on their way out includes Ashutosh Shukla, a senior VP who had been with Mindtree for the past 13 years. In his last role, Shukla was responsible for driving sales in the key North American market, which accounts for close to 60 per cent of the company’s overall revenues. Besides, Anand Rao Ladi, a senior VP responsible for managing the Asia-Pacific region, is learnt to have left the company. Ladi had been with the company for the past 15 years.

The other senior executives who have resigned from the company and are currently serving notice periods are Ramachandran Narayanaswamy, VP and global head of quality, and Vineet Gupta, global head of digital business.

In February this year, Mindtree had announced the resignation of its company secretary and legal head Rajesh S Narang. Similarly, Amit Varma, who was heading the consulting business, had quit from the company in January this year and subsequently joined larger peer Infosys to drive its digital transformation business.

While Mindtree declined to comment on the issue as the company is in a quiet period ahead of its fourth quarter FY15 results on April 16, the executives concerned also could not be reached for their comments.

While the uptick in the sector and better demand outlook has triggered movement of senior level executives in IT services companies in the recent past, Mindtree is also learnt to be going through a major restructuring process, said to be one of the reasons for the rise in exits.

“They have been doing some reorienting and restructuring in order to sharpen their focus on certain businesses. This could largely be the fallout of that,” said a senior executive of a recruitment consulting firm aware of the company’s strategy.

In its recent round of rejig announced in January this year, Mindtree had said Rostow Ravanan, chief financial officer, would move to a business role. In his new role, which became effective from April 1, Ravanan, also a co-founder, would be responsible for services lines, key accounts group and Europe business.

As a part of this, the company made its president and chief operating officer Parthasarathy N S as head of people’s operations apart from transferring chief delivery officer Veeraraghavan R K to head the hi-tech vertical.

Mindtree, which will announce its fourth quarter and FY15 financial results on April 16, is expected to report flat growth in its organic revenues for the quarter, owing to cross currency headwinds and delay in commencement of a couple of large projects.

RECENT EXITS AT MINDTREE

• Ashutosh Shukla, senior VP, head of North America sales
• Rajesh S Narang, legal head and company secretary
• Ramachandran Narayanaswamy, VP and global head of quality
• Anand Rao Ladi, senior VP, head of Asia Pacific
• Vineet Gupta, global head for digital business Amit Varma, VP & head of consulting business