Capgemini promotes 3 Indian executives to global positions

It is one of the few European firms to have used its India centre successfully for innovation.

Continuing its focus on India, Paris-based IT consulting and services firm Capgemini promoted three Indian executives — Salil Parekh, Aruna Jayanthi and Baru Rao — to global roles.

Capgemini is one of the few European firms to have used its India centre successfully for innovation, as a large offshoring centre as well as tapped the domestic market. With a headcount of 30,000, the India centre is also the largest for the group.

To start with Jayanthi will take over as the new CEO of India. Her priorities as the CEO of India will be to support the Capgemini Group’s growth agenda and strengthen India’s position as an industrialisation and innovation hub for the company. She will oversee the operations across India, with a current employee base of 30,000. Jayanthi was earlier the Global Delivery Officer for Capgemini Outsourcing.

“India plays an integral role in our strategy and has become the biggest country of the Group in terms of headcount, and as a hub for innovation. We are bringing in a strong leader to India, who is one of our high profile women executives in the Group. Her strong global experience will be a great asset to our Indian operations, as the organisation aims to have 50 per cent of its staff here,” said Paul Hermelin Global CEO.

Parekh who was the CEO of global Financial Services, Asia Pacific, and India offshore will now become the CEO of Application Services businesses of Capgemini that include the North America and United Kingdom geographies, the Financial Services (FS) across the world, along with local business units in India and Australia. This strategic business unit (SBU) spans across 12 countries, and has 27,000 employees. He will continue to be a member of the Group’s Executive Committee.

Rao who was the CEO of India will now be taking on a new role as the COO for Application Services Europe, spanning across 24 countries with 22,000 employees. He will focus on the top line improvement through offshore leverage and innovation and margin improvement through industrialisation.

“Under the leadership of Parekh and Rao, Indian operations have grown rapidly. Going forward, it is important to have these two leaders more involved in the group’s global activities. Hence, we decided to move Parekh to head the key markets of UK and US, and Baru to move into a leadership role in Continental Europe,” said Hermelin.