Newsmaker: Ashok Vemuri

Going from the ground up

In the 22 years of his professional life so far, Ashok Vemuri, the soon-to-become chief executive of Xerox Business Services, has proved his mettle in the outsourcing industry with leadership roles at Infosys and iGate. But this is the first time that the India-born executive will be involved in building a company from the ground up.

Xerox is in the process of separating its document management and back office business into two different publicly-traded companies. After the separation, which is slated to be over by the end of this year, Vemuri will head the $7-billion BPO company as its CEO, reporting directly to Xerox Chairman Ursula Burns.

Vemuri’s decision to join Xerox has not come as a surprise, though the buzz was that he may look at starting out as an investor or a fund manager, banking on the expertise he has garnered over the years being part of the IT industry.

While Vemuri may as well have continued with Capgemini which had inducted him to the Group Management Board, those who have worked with him say he was too independent-minded to stay there after Capgemini’s decision to acquire iGate. “He has a certain style of working. He would certainly not prefer to work in an environment with too many bosses above him,” say his colleagues. Especially, after Infosys, where he was a board member, and iGate, Vemuri would not have perhaps settled for any role other than that of the CEO at Capgemini, they say. His decision to join Xerox makes sense as he would be independently managing the business of the company, which is focused on the North American markets. Besides, Xerox is known as one of the most innovative companies around with a huge focus on research and development.

His former colleagues know him as somebody who is more an execution-focused person than a man of words. This is something he proved at iGate. His focus on operational efficiency and delivery excellence helped the company improve its valuation to $4 billion when it got acquired by Capgemini last year. “He is highly focused and during business meetings, he only means business,” says a former colleague.

It would be interesting to see how this alumnus of Delhi’s St Stephen’s College and IIM-Ahmedabad, to whom Xerox is doling out a targeted pay package of $3.5 million, would prove himself in the business process outsourcing space. Vemuri will slip into the new role at Xerox from July 1.