BANGALORE, INDIA: The stunning performance of SD Shibulal as the chief operating officer of India's IT heavyweight Infosys has won him a significant support in the ongoing race for the post of the company's next CEO.

NR Narayana Murthy, chairman of the board and chief mentor, Infosys, strongly believes that the current COO has what it takes to be the next CEO of the company.

“At this point of time Shibulal is the chief operating officer and he has done an extra ordinary job. I think members of the board, particularly independent members of the board, are very very happy with the performance,” Murthy told NDTV Profit in an interview.

“When the times come, when he is recommended as the candidate by the nomination committee, I am pretty sure that the board would look at his candidature with a certain sense of seriousness,” he added.

Recently BANGALORE, Murthy had said that the possibility of his son joining Infosys cannot be ruled out “ but the probability is somewhat low”.

As we CIOL reported earlier, most of the Infosys board members will retire in the year 2014. And the company has already started grooming the people who is in line to take the seats which would be vacant by then.

In a recent interview with CIOL, Nandita Gurjar, SVP and global HRD head of Infosys had said that the company strongly believed in succession planning, as most of the board members would retire in 2014.

She had also said that the company already got the next level of executive council in place. “We started building this level two years ago in 2008. They are already being groomed for the next role almost six years before taking up the position,” Gurjar had said.

Though he seemed to be tipping the balance of his conscience in favor of Shibulal, Murthy was quick to add that there were others also like members of the board, members of council and all of them are certainly up to the task.