Ever since Anil Agarwal’s Vedanta group took over Cairn India, there has been constant trouble amongst the leadership. The latest news about the company is that the CEO, Sudhir Mathur, has also recently quit, making him the 4th CEO of the company to quit ever since Vedanta took over 7 years ago. Apart from him, Pankaj Kalra, the CFO of Cairn India, has also quit the company now. Mr. Kalra had resigned a few months ago, and Mr. Mathur recently resigned one month ago. The news has been made public just now.
This is not all. Mr. Sunil Bhat, who was the Director of Oil and Gas and Member of the company’s Executive Company also quit 6 months ago. This happened shortly after Arup Chakraborty, the Chief internal audit and risk assurance director also quit. We don’t know about you, but it seems as though Vedanta is not doing a very good job when it comes to keeping its management happy. Of course, with any merger, there are certain challenges. But 4 CEOs quitting in a span of 7 years hints that these challenges are here to stay.
Sudhir Mathur
A spokesperson from Cairn India talked about the resignations with the media. He said, “Such movements in management are part of natural evolution in any organization and are in line with career aspirations and personal priorities of individuals.” He further added “Having a strong and healthy leadership pipeline is the key in a high growth organization like ours. We want to emphasize here that these movements are unconnected and have been spread over a period of time.”
Mr. Mathur declined to make any comments regarding his resignation. He joined Cairn India in 2013 and has been with the company for a substantial period, though not as hefty a time period as most other CEOs stay with their companies. The fact that 4 CEOs have quit prior to him makes this sound like it was less of a career move and more of misalignment with organizational culture. However, since he declined to comment, we cannot say the same for sure.
