Did Infosys overlook Pai over Stephen Pratt

BANGALORE, INDIA: With the sudden resignation of Mohandas Pai from Member of board of Infosys technologies, there are speculations building up across the company that he was seeing a bleek future within the organization and had measured that company was looking at Stephen R Pratt as next CEO after Shibulal.

According to a senior manager in the company, “There was an (unofficially) understanding among the employees that SD Shibulal(present COO) would take up the role as CEO of the company till 2014. The company was keen at bringing Stephen replace him. Pai, otherwise had no reason to put in his papers.”

“Pratt is a dynamic leader and speaker and is seen as a prospective CEO. He was good at building Infosys brand among global clients and in global media, like what Mohandas Pai does in India and in one of the board meetings he was suggested by Narayan Murthy as successor for Infosys”, he observed.

At Present, Stephen R. Pratt CEO and managing director, Infosys Consulting and head, Consulting Solutions, Infosys Technologies. He has more than 20 years of experience in business consulting, and was part of the founding team of Infosys Consulting, Infosys' consulting subsidiary.

This speculation is synonymous to a findings in a BNP Paribas report titled 'Don't fix it if it ain't broken', that in next two-three years the IT major could have its first non-founder and non-Indian CEO with the Stephen.

Mohandas Pai being the head of HRD, had been answerable for the major attrition in the company following the job market recovery and their new HR initiative called iRace.

However, In a recent interview, (post the resignation) Pai shared that he never aspired to be the CEO of Infosys and have been opting out of major roles for new opportunity and diversity.

Indian companies for long have been keen at going global with diverse representation on board. Mindtree recently appointed Dr.Albert Hieronimus as the new chairman on board.