|
MANAGEMENT MOVES
PAI IN THE SKY
By Jennifer Lee
One of India’s best-known CFOs, TV Mohandas Pai, is resigning from his post after 12 years in the job to make way for younger people to take up more responsibility in the company, according to Infosys chairman and chief mentor, NR Narayana Murthy, at a press conference. Pai can take credit for a long series of notable successes at the global software outsourcing company, among them: taking Infosys to a public listing on Nasdaq in 1999, and instituting an employee stock option scheme, both firsts for an Indian company. He has become a well-known and public face to India and the company’s global investors.
So understandably his resignation has raised eyebrows. It is because of where he is going – from one of the most powerful positions in the company, Pai becomes director of Infosys’s HR function. Though at first glance it seems like at the very most a lateral move, the change could actually be a brilliant play on the part of Infosys to keep its edge in India’s talent war. Infosys already employs 52,715 people, and it aims to hire another 25,000 this coming fiscal year. Said Murthy: “As we continue to scale up, the major challenges for Infosys will be in the HRD and E&R (education and research) areas. I am glad we have Mohan handling these critical functions.”
By appointing Pai as director of HR, Infosys is effectively upgrading its HR function – he will remain on the board, and will report directly to the CEO. The previous HR director, Hema Ravichandar, reported to Infosys COO Kris Gopalakrishnan. Pai will oversee HR development, education and research, and administration. He will also continue on as chairman of the BPO arm, Progeon. The new CFO, who was previously senior vice president (finance) and company secretary, V Balakrishnan, will not join the board.
This year marks Infosys’s 25th year in business, after being launched in 1981 by a group of seven software professionals, who each contributed seed capital. The year marked a couple of firsts for the company: it surpassed US$2 bn a year in revenues just two years after passing the US$1 bn mark in 2004, and its employee base grew to more than 50,000.
It continues to benefit from growing demand for outsourcing from Western companies: in fiscal 2005 its year-on-year growth in net profit was 33.2%. |
CFOs on the Move
Patrick Mo Yiu Poon is the new CFO at SHK Financial Group, the financial services arm of Sun Hung Kai, which focuses on wealth management, asset management, and corporate finance. He was previously with JPMorgan Chase Bank as vice president of Finance and was the group financial controller of Jardine Fleming Group in Asia before its subsequent merger … Hyundai Motor executives, including CFO Lee Jung-dae and Chung Mong-koo, chairman of the group, have been detained by authorities. An investigation has been launched to determine whether Hyundai, Korea’s largest automaker, inappropriately transferred funds from affiliates, and then used the funds to seek business favors from the government and to transfer wealth to the founding family ... H Gelis was executive director and CFO of Siemens India for five years. Now he moves to Canada to head up the German electrical engineering and electronics company’s operations there, and Patrick de Royer steps into his place in India. Before his India posting, de Royer was head of corporate strategies Asia/Pacific for Siemens, which involved cultivating strategic projects across the region ... Rajesh Subramaniam becomes the new CFO at India’s business-processing outsourcing company ICICI OneSource. He replaces Rahul Basu, who moves to New York, where he will take charge of ASG, the company’s collections business ... N Shridhar leaves his position as CFO of Britannia Industries to become CFO of Future Capital Holdings, the financial services unit of India-based Pantaloon Retail. Shridhar has worked for numerous FMCG companies in India, notably Coca Cola, Hindustan Lever, and Asian Paints. Future Capital Holdings operates two real-estate funds, as well as a private-equity fund called Indivision. – Jennifer Lee |
