HCL's Europe head exits

Rajeev Sawhney has resigned as head of the Europe operations of HCL Technologies, the country’s fifth largest information technology services provider.

Sawhney was instrumental in setting up the company’s Europe presence. Industry sources said Sawhney would leave the company this month and decide his next move only in March.

When contacted, an HCL spokesperson said: “Rajeev was head of public services in Europe for quite some time. The Europe business is at a mature state and more aligned to vertical and horizontal offerings in the region. For Europe as a geography, Rajeev was playing an administrative role.” Repeated attempts to get in touch with Sawhney failed.

Sawhney has been with HCL for the last 28 years and is among the top management that has worked closely with promoter and founder Shiv Nadar.

In this role, Sawhney was responsible for overseeing the strategic direction of HCL to deliver transformational outsourcing and IT-enabled services to organisations across Europe. For HCL, the Europe contribution to its revenue for 2011 was 27.3 per cent, about $1 billion.

Prior to becoming the managing director of HCL Europe, he worked as a business head for HCL-Hewlett Packard Ltd, HCL's joint venture with Hewlett Packard, where he managed HCL IT Hardware (India's largest selling PC brand).