Wipro is not alone, several Indian IT companies are facing a CXO churn

On September 21, Jatin Dalal resigned as Wipro’s chief financial officer (CFO). The company said in a statement Dalal was leaving to “pursue other career opportunities”.

Experts in the information technology (IT) sector were surprised. Dalal had spent 21 years with Wipro, India’s fourth-largest IT services company, and been its CFO for eight years. He was also on the investment committee of Wipro Ventures, the company’s $100 million strategic investment arm that focuses on startups.

Aparna C Iyer now steps into the CFO’s shoes at Wipro. She most recently held the position of senior vice-president and CFO of Wipro FullStride Cloud.

A number of other senior executives have left Wipro in the last 12 months: Chief operations officer Sanjeev Singh, Americas 2 CFO Nithin V Jaganmohan, iDEAS business head Rajan Kohli, vice-president Gurvinder Sahni, Americas 1 CFO Kamini Shah, head of healthcare and medical devices unit Mohd Haque, and head of manufacturing and hi-tech business unit Ashish Saxena.

But Wipro should not be singled out. For months, the entire IT sector has been in the midst for a churn, with several top executives — CXOs, in business parlance —resigning to join other companies as chief executive officers (CEOs) or thereabouts, almost always at higher salaries. Dalal, for instance, joined Cognizant for a total compensation of about $5 million a year, five times his pay at Wipro, where his salary declined to $1 million a year in 2022-23 from $1.6 million in FY22.

Human resources experts attribute the movements to anything from unrealised ambition to work environment.

However, Thierry Delaporte, Wipro’s CEO and managing director, remains unfazed, saying the transition from Dalal to Iyer was not as abrupt as it may have looked to the external world.

“Jatin has been CFO for eight years and still has many years ahead of him. I should not blame him for wanting to do something different… We already had an open discussion with Jatin that Aparna would take over from him the day he wanted to move on. And Aparna has jumped in a few weeks ago… It has been an absolutely smooth transition. I wish him all the best,” Delaporte told Business Standard in an interview after Wipro declared its second- quarter results.

Delaporte is the seventh CEO the IT major has had this century, the same number as Infosys. However, while Infosys moved through a transition from co-founder to co-founder before handing over the reins to professionals, Wipro has followed a different route.

Inevitable change

One of the more interesting turns on Wipro’s route was the joint-CEO model tried out from 2008 to 2011, during which both Suresh Vaswani and Girish Paranjpe were designated CEO. They were replaced by a single CEO, TK Kurien, who served for five years before being replaced by Abidali Neemuchwala in February 2016. Neemuchwala decided to end his tenure prematurely in early 2020.
 

Delaporte, who left Capgemini to join Wipro in July 2020, in the midst of Covid-induced disruptions, is the first foreign national to head Wipro. He believes change is “inevitable” as Wipro is going through a transformation.

“We need to inject a lot of new senior leadership in the organisation. And we have been driving that programme for the last three years to bring fresh talent from this industry or other industries… If you believe the same people doing the same things will produce different results, it's not going to happen,” he said.

HR experts say the current challenging environment for the IT industry could be one of the reasons for the CXO churn.

“The IT industry in India is going through a dynamic phase, with new technical advancements, business opportunities, and operational challenges,” says Venu Lambu, CEO, Randstad Digital, the digital arm of talent company Randstad. “As a result, CXOs have been tasked with the responsibility to steer companies through these situations with restricted budgets and a limited pool of skilled talent to attain maximum profitability. This has somewhat led to increased burnout, especially post-Covid.”

As experts at predicting business and industry growth, some CXOs might decide to switch companies or even sectors, or explore newer markets, innovative offerings, and fresh business models.

In January this year, Infosys veteran Ravi Kumar S joined Cognizant as the CEO and member of the board, succeeding Brian Humphries. Kumar spent 20 years at Infosys, serving as president from January 2016 through October 2022.

In March, Tech Mahindra appointed former Infosys president Mohit Joshi as managing director and CEO for five years with effect from December 20 , 2023. Joshi will take over from C P Gurnani, who is due to retire on December 19.

An analyst attributes this to unfulfilled aspiration. “In such cases, moving on to something bigger outside the organisation is an obvious choice,” says the analyst, who does not wish to be named.
 

HR experts see CXO movements as being both a positive and a negative for the industry. “On the positive side, they can foster innovation and competition as new leaders bringing fresh ideas and perspectives. They can also create more opportunities for talent development and mobility, as they open new positions and roles for existing and aspiring employees,” says Jayita Roy, vice-president of HR, Adecco India. “On the negative side, they can create uncertainty and confusion among  customers, partners, and employees of both the leaving and joining companies.”     

  

Managing the churn

What can companies do to take care of CXO aspirations? Roy suggests a plan that “outlines their potential paths to leadership positions within the company, as well as the skills, competencies, and achievements that are expected from them.” Additionally, organisations should foster a culture of recognition and appreciation.

Companies can invest in the growth of their leaders. According to Randstad, one way is to offer access to leadership development programmes, which can make them grow professionally and help in steering their teams towards higher levels.

“By offering a strong purpose to the leader, the company can bridge any need gaps in the job role and offer exclusive perquisites to compensate them for their commitment to the company,” says Lambu of Randstad Digital.

Most experts agree that CXOs can often face a burnout or a “what-next” conundrum, especially in the latter part of their professional journeys. Like any other employee, they seek growth and sometimes feel the need to take a break.

These needs and feelings can get accentuated during a time of transformation, such as the one the IT industry is currently undergoing. That being the case, as Delaporte says, change is inevitable.