IT major Infosys has called back Chairman Emeritus and chief mentor N R Narayana Murthy from retirement to save the company he co-founded from its consistent dismal performance.
Murthy will take over as Executive Chairman for a five-year term, while incumbent Chairman K V Kamath is set to step down and serve as an independent lead director. Consequently, Kris Gopalakrishnan will be redesignated as Executive Vice Chairman. Infosys has been churning out some of its worst performance results recently, but the decision to bring Murthy back can be attributed to 2013’s fourth quarter results, which saw the company shares dipping nearly 22 per cent and losing market capitalization of over `34,000 crore.
“When I walked out of Infosys on August 20, 2011, I did not in my wildest dreams imagine that I will be back here in an executive capacity”, Murthy told reporters here on Saturday.
He will assume executive roles in the company after a seven-year gap. Meanwhile, Kamath said the industry was going through some tough challenges and given Murthy’s pioneering role in Infosys, they invited him to take charge of the situation.
Murthy, however, will bring a small army of youngsters from his family investment office, Catamaran, which includes his son Rohan Murthy. The team from Catamaran will serve as Murthy’s executive assistants. “The only motivation for me to embark this journey at the current stage of my life is to see Infosys achieve the dreams that you and I have for it”, he wrote to fellow ‘Infoscions’.