- Chatterjee served in Cognizant before he quit in May after 23 years
- Two former cognizant executives were widely reported to be in the running for the post.
- Earlier, L&T purchased 20.32 percent of Mindtree shares from the founder of Coffee Day Enterprises VG Siddhartha in March
Cognizant executive Debashis Chatterjee will take over from August 1, as CEO of Mindtree. Chatterjee joined Cognizant in 1996 and held a number of important roles of leadership.
Chatterjee served as the worldwide service executive vice president and president in Cognizant before leaving in May after serving the business for 23 years.
Two former cognizant executives, Rajeev Mehta and Debashis Chatterjee, as well as former CEO and co-founder of Mindtree, Anjan Lahiri, have been commonly identified as running for the post.
He said his over-two-decade stint with Cognizant ends today in a LinkedIn article. He held the position of executive vice president and president at Cognizant in his recent role, worldwide delivery. Chatterjee holds a B.A. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Jadavpur.
Former top executives of Mindtree–Chief Executive Rostow Ravanan, Chairman Krishnakumar Natarajan and Vice-Chairman Parthasarathy NS–had left previously this month following L&T’s acquisition of the mid-tier IT business. As of July 17, Subroto Bagchi, one of Mindtree’s main founding members, also chose to retire from the company’s board.
Larsen & Toubro, which recently took over mid-sized IT firm Mindtree in India’s first hostile takeover in years, had said it would announce a new CEO for the company by the end of this week.
The infrastructure giant purchased 20.32 percent of Mindtree shares from the founder of Coffee Day Enterprises VG Siddhartha in March for more than 3,000 crores. Subsequently, it shored up its holding with more open market share purchases before making an open bid for a further 31 percent stake.
Mindtree Ltd recorded a 41 percent fall in its quarterly profit due to greater expenditures in the April-June quarter. Net profit dropped to about 92.7 crores in the quarter from about 158.2 crores in the previous year ended 30 June.
The total costs of the company grew from 1,451.3 crores in the respective period a year ago to approximately 1,730 crores in the April-June period. Revenue in the June quarter grew from around 1,639.5 crores in the year-ago era to 1,834.2 crores in the June quarter. On a sequential basis, however, it was smaller than the crore reported in the quarter of March.
Over the previous few years, Mindtree has been one of the fastest-growing midcaps IT firms. Analysts say the firm will also have to deal with the disturbance created by the shift as well as the general economic environment being soft for the IT business.
VG Siddhartha – The Man Who Changed The Coffee Culture Of India