Ashiss Dash to be Infosys CEO; to take over from Salil Parekh in April 2027

The Infosys veteran will take over as chief executive officer and managing director from April 1, 2027, after Salil Parekh completes his second term at the IT major

After almost a decade, India’s second largest Information technology (IT) services firm will witness a leadership change, as Infosys has named Ashiss Kumar Dash the chief executive officer (CEO) designate, effective immediately. 

Based on the recommendation of the Board’s Nomination and Remuneration Committee, Dash will assume responsibilities as CEO from April 1, 2027 for a period of five years after Parekh’s second term comes to end on March 31. Parekh would have then completed nine years at the helm of the company. 

Dash will be the first professional CEO of the company to be appointed from within the ranks. Parekh had joined Infosys from Capgemini India while his predecessor Vishal Sikka was from German software giant  SAP. 

 

Dash, presently Infosys’ global head of a diverse business portfolio comprising multiple industry verticals, will move to Bengaluru from Los Angeles where he has spent the last decade. 

He was also the segment head of energy, utilities, resources, and services, a vertical that contributed 13.4 per cent to Infosys’ topline in the first quarter and grew 1.3 per cent on a constant currency basis. He has spent over three decades at Infosys.

 

Dash had joined the company as senior engagement engineer in 1995 after graduating from IIT Kharagpur a year earlier. 

“The Board was clear that our next CEO needed to combine the ability to drive bold transformation with the judgement to preserve the values and customer trust that have always distinguished Infosys. It gives me great pleasure that we have an internal leader as our next CEO,” Infosys Chairman Nandan Nilekani said in a statement. 

Infosys is changing its top guard at a time when the IT services industry is facing its biggest threat from artificial intelligence (AI) and agentic AI. It has not only lost some marquee accounts, but also faces ongoing pricing pressure, and slower growth over the last couple of years as enterprises reassess technology spending. 

According to Phil Fersht, founder and CEO of HfS Research, while these issues are not unique to Infosys they highlight the challenge of competing in a market where clients increasingly expect AI-driven productivity improvements to be reflected in lower contract values. 

“The next phase requires moving beyond productivity gains and toward AI-native, outcome-based services-as-software (SaS) offerings that decouple revenue growth from headcount growth,” he added. 

Dash’s immediate challenge will be to ensure that growth remains intact even as AI compresses legacy revenue. The focus will be on beefing up AI revenue exponentially in a weak demand environment. 

The announcement brings the curtains down on Parekh’s remarkable journey at Infosys across two terms spread over a little more than nine years, having joined the company in 2018 when it was rocked and bruised following the public spat between cofounder Narayana Murthy and Sikka. 

In 2017, Murthy accused the board of lapses in corporate governance — a metric in which Infosys was regarded as a gold standard. Infosys came out of that battle scarred to the core and it was the return of Nilekani that helped the company return to its growth path by shutting out the noise and focusing on delivery. 

That has been visible with the numbers. Under Parekh, the Bengaluru-based company’s revenue more than doubled to ₹178,650 crore as of March 31, 2026, up from ₹70,522 crore for the financial year 2017-18. That translates into a compound annual growth rate of 12.3 per cent. Net profit has also gone up to ₹29,440, from ₹16,029 crore during the same time period. Infosys’ market capitalisation has also more than doubled to ₹507,436 crore from ₹247,766 crore. 

“His legacy is less about chasing maximum growth and more about building a resilient operating model. Infosys evolved from a company emerging from governance uncertainty into one known for execution discipline, consistent profitability, strong cash generation, and predictable capital returns,” said Gaurav Vasu, CEO of UnearthInsights. 

Parekh also recently unveiled the company’s two-pronged AI strategy; capture new demand for AI first services across six value pools and augment existing services with AI to expand wallet share. He said AI services present a $300 billion opportunity for several years with focus on AI engineering, which means building and orchestrating of agents, besides legacy systems modernisation. 

As a person who literally grew Capgemini’s India business from scratch, Parekh was often viewed as a turnaround manager. He entered the French firm at the turn of the century when Capgemini bought Ernst & Young Consulting for $11 billion. The latter had a 300-member team in India, which Parekh over the years turned into a 100,000 workforce.