Vishal Sikka Resigns As Managing Director And CEO Of Infosys Friday August 18,2017

Vishal Sikka on Friday August 18,2017 stepped down as the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of tech giant Infosys citing “continuous distractions and disruptions" as the reason.

Chief Operating Officer UB Pravin Rao has been given the interim charge, while Sikka has been made the Executive Vice-Chairman.

In a letter to Infosys employees, Sikka referred to “increasingly personal attacks against him”. “I cannot carry out my job as CEO and continue to create value, while also constantly defending against unrelenting, baseless/malicious and increasingly personal attacks,” Sikka said in the letter which he later shared on his blog.

“I now need to move forward, and return to an environment of respect, trust and empowerment, where I can take on new lofty challenges, as can each of you,” he added.

In its communication to the markers, Infosys said it had accepted Sikka’s resignation. "...The board of directors of Infosys Limited has at its meeting today accepted the resignation of Dr Vishal Sikka as the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of the company with immediate effect," the IT firm said in a BSE filing. Sikka has been appointed as the Executive Vice-Chairman, Infosys said.

Full text of Vishal Sikka's resignation email to Infosys board

Dear Board Colleagues,

Over the last few days, since our earlier call, I've met Sesh several times, talked to you individually at length, and spent time thinking things through with Vandana. During this time, one of our employees, Sandeep Karamongikar, died in his sleep, likely of a massive heart attack. He was working on the chatbot frontend in Nia. Also over the weekend, in possibly the greatest demonstration of AI capability ever, a bot built by the researchers at OpenAI (yes, that OpenAI), defeated the world's best players of DOTA2, a multiplayer online video game, a game where the bot learned to play entirely from scratch. Further demonstrating that the force to automate routine, even advanced, activities is an unstoppable and exponential one. And the Charlottesville incident here in the U.S. demonstrated once again the power of words and silences to cause real damage, or to heal.

After much reflection, I have concluded that it is indeed time for me to leave my current positions as MD and CEO, and I have communicated my resignation to Sesh.

I will be working closely with Sesh, Ravi, Pravin, with all of you, and the senior management team to plan out the details and the timelines to ensure a smooth transition and in the meantime, continue our work without disruption, and ensuring that we protect our company, the employees, the clients, and the interests of every shareholder. You can count on my commitment to this.

I came here to help navigate the company through what I saw as a massive transformation opportunity, to transform our company and restore strong profitable growth, as well as help transform the business of our customers. I came to do this with the power of technology, given my experiences with similar transformations, my background in AI, and the structural changes that I saw happening in the I.T. services industry.

This needed new skills, new thinking, new initiatives, and a transformation in the culture, from a cost-oriented value delivery, to entrepreneurship oriented value delivery. You have heard me articulate this many times before. This type of a transformation has always been a passion for me, indeed I took this job for this reason.

We have achieved much in the last 3+ years, and for sure we can all be proud of the powerful seeds of transformation that have already been sowed. No one anticipated the additional headwinds like the geo-political disruptions (Brexit, Trump, visa, etc.) that made this transformation even more challenging, but also rewarding. But the distractions that we have seen, the constant drumbeat of the same issues over and over again, while ignoring and undermining the good work that has been done, take the excitement and passion out of this amazing journey.

Over the last many months and quarters, we have all been besieged by false, baseless, malicious and increasingly personal attacks. Allegations that have been repeatedly proven false and baseless by multiple, independent investigations. But despite this, the attacks continue, and worse still, amplified by the very people from whom we all expected the most steadfast support in this great transformation. This continuous drumbeat of distractions and negativity over the last several months/quarters, inhibits our ability to make positive change and stay focused on value creation.

Addressing the noise by itself is damaging; hundreds of hours of my own time has gone into this recently. But the structural challenges this engenders within the organization, has a very damaging effect on our ability to carry out any kind of a transformation, especially one that is as fundamental as transforming from a cost-oriented to an innovation-oriented value delivery to clients.

Therefore, I have come to this moment and the end of this journey. I hope that it gives everyone a chance to reflect, and give the transformation effort another big push and move the company forward rapidly to build its future, to build upon the foundation that we have laid over these past three years.

If these types of attacks continue, I hope each of you will continue to be the voice of fairness and reason—providing the active, emphatic and unequivocal support that the company, the management, the employees, and all of the stakeholders and friends of the company need in order to succeed. Since the board deeply believes in the cause we have started, I will be happy to support all of you to achieve a smooth transition, and serve as your executive vice chair as discussed.

I would like to thank each one of you, my dear colleagues, my friends and mentors, and look forward to working with you to close this chapter and open a great new one for all of us.

Best,

V

All you need to know about Vishal Sikka

- Vishal Sikka joined Infosys in 2014.

- Sikka took over from then-CEO S D Shibulal, one of Infosys' founders

- According to the annual report of Infosys, the cash component of Sikka's salary was Rs 16.01 crore in 2017, down from Rs 48.73 crore in 2015-16.

- Prior to joining Infosys, Sikka was a member of the Executive Board of SAP SE, leading all products and technologies, including all of product development, and driving innovation globally.

- Sikka joined the SAP Executive Board in February 2002.

- In his 12 years at SAP, Sikka held several senior leadership roles including becoming SAP’s first-ever CTO in 2007.

- As CTO, Sikka was responsible for overall technology architecture and ensuring coherence in SAP’s product strategy.

- Sikka is the creator of ‘timeless software,’ a framework which articulates the principles of renewing existing processes and landscapes without disruption to customer environments.

- His experience includes research in artificial intelligence, intelligent systems, programming languages and models, and information management – at Stanford University, at Xerox Palo Alto Labs, and as the founder of two startups.

- Sikka received his BS in Computer Science from Syracuse University.

- He holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Stanford University.

From Vishal Sikka’s Appointment to Resgination

• Aug 2014: Vishal Sikka, former SAP AG executive board member, takes over from SD Shibulal as Infosys chief executive to revive fortunes of the company
• Dec 2014: Some of Infosys’s founders - N.R. Narayana Murthy, Nandan Nilekani, SD Shibulal and K Dinesh - sell shares worth $1.1 billion in the company, cashing in on a more than 20 percent gain in the stock since Sikka’s appointment.
• Feb 2016: Board decides to extend Sikka’s tenure by two years to 2021.
• Feb 2017: Infosys says it addressed concerns about executive pay after media reported that its founders had complained about decisions including a pay hike for Sikka.
• Feb 2017: Company reassures investors and analysts it was not being distracted by a dispute with founders.
• April 2017: Founder Murthy criticises salary hike given to Chief Operating Officer Pravin Rao
• April 2017: Company announces $2 billion cash return to shareholders and appoints independent director Ravi Venkatesan as co-chairman of board, moves seen aimed at placating some founders and former executives who were critical about the management.
• Aug 2017: Sikka resigns as CEO, citing a stream of distractions and disruptions