Infy to name Murthy's successor today

May also announce new CEO and members of board.

Suspense over the new chairman of Infosys Technologies, the country’s second largest information technology (IT) services company, will end tomorrow. The board of directors is set to hold a marathon meeting to finalise the name of the new chairman, who will succeed the co-founder and incumbent chairman N R Narayana Murthy.

The decision is likely to have a ripple effect across the top management.

Industry watchers and analysts believe in case the nomination committee decides to go along with one of the co-founders as the chairman, chances are that S Gopalakrishnan (more familiar as Kris), the present CEO and MD of the Bangalore-headquartered company, may make it to the top post. In such a scenario, the company has to announce his successor.

It is almost certain that S D Shibulal, co-founder and the present chief operating officer (COO), will be the next CEO if Kris Gopalakrishnan moves up the ladder. If the company decides to go with an outsider, the name doing the rounds is K V Kamath, non-executive chairman of ICICI Bank, the second largest bank in the country.

Some also believe the company may decide to make Jeffrey S Lehman, the chairman of the company’s nomination committee, the new chairman. This would help Infosys maintain its image as a global company and pacify its foreign institutional investors.

The reshuffling, however, may not end here. While sources within the company say the board may not appoint a COO immediately, to do away with the notion that only a COO can take over as the CEO, there might be some last-minute changes. The company may prefer to assign the roles of the COO to a senior executive, instead of a designation. Besides, after the exit of T V Mohandas Pai and K Dinesh, Infosys is expected to make two new appointments to the board. V Balakrishnan, the group CFO, and Ashok Vemuri, senior vice-president and head of the largest revenue generating banking, financial services and insurance vertical, are top contenders for induction.