ITC Infotech tweaks its management structure

Creates COO's post, appoints LiquidHub's Sushma Rajagopalan to it

ITC Infotech, a mid-size information technology (IT) services company and wholly-owned subsidiary of cigarette-to- hospitality major ITC Ltd is creating a new leadership structure apart from strengthening the senior management, as it gets set for the next stage of growth.

The Bangalore-based company, it has been reliably learnt, has created the position of a chief operating officer (COO) for the first time and has appointed Sushma Rajagopalan, a veteran in the IT services industry, with over three decades of experience in technology and management consulting to the post.

Rajagopalan, who is joining ITC Infotech on August 1 this year, is presently a global partner at Philadelphia-based system integrator and technology consulting firm, LiquidHub. She is also the managing director for LiquidHub India.

The company confirmed the creation of the new role and Rajagopalan's appointment to the position.

"ITC Infotech has been witnessing a high growth trajectory over the last few years. The company's extensive expansion plans, driven by a wide array of strategic initiatives, will require significant top management focus and hence the position of a COO has been created," a company spokesperson said in an email statement.

It is learnt that in her new role, Rajagopalan would be responsible for ITC Infotech's delivery, sales, strategy and long-term planning. All the heads of various business units, geographies as well as the chief technology officers (CTOs), who were earlier reporting to the company's managing director, will now report to Rajagopalan, an MBA in strategy & entrepreneurship from Carnegie Mellon University. She will report to B Sumanth, the managing director of the company.

Apart from creating the new structure, ITC Infotech has also been strengthening its senior management team by hiring key professionals from its bigger competitiors. For example, the company last month had hired Babuji Abraham, a long-timer at its bigger rival Mindtree, as the new CTO. Abraham, who was earlier a senior vice president at Mindtree, was heading the emerging technologies section.

Since its inception in 2000, ITC Infotech has been seeing steady growth ahead of the industry growth rate. According to DataQuest, the company had reported Rs 1,009 crore in revenues in FY13, a growth of 22 per cent over the previous year. In FY14, the company is learnt to have crossed $200 million (over Rs 1,200 crore), according to industry sources.

Amid the changing technology landscape and client demands, larger peer Infosys also had decided to recreate the position of a COO earlier this year and had appointed old-timer U B Pravin Rao to the post.
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• Apart from creating the new structure, ITC Infotech has also been strengthening its senior management team by hiring key professionals from its bigger competitiors