Infosys, Tata begin successor hunt

NEW DELHI, INDIA: Infosys chief mentor Narayana Murthy said on Tuesday that the company co-founded by him will get his suitable successor well in time before his retirement in August 2011, when he turns 65.

While interacting with the media on the sidelines of an AIMA event here, he said the nomination committee will come up with the name of a successor. “We have a nomination committee. Jeffrey Lehman is the chairman of that. At an appropriate time he will do that. Certainly, he and his committee will come up with a successor in time so that I can retire on August 20, 2011,” a PTI report quoted him as saying.

On the other hand India's Tata Group has also started the hunt for a chief, as Ratan Tata is due to retire at the end of 2012.

The Tata Group, which owns TCS, last week announced setting up of a committee to search for Ratan Tata's successor, who is expected to be in place by March next year.

Meanwhile, addressing the shareholders of group company, Tata Chemicals Ltd, Ratan Tata said that the person finally selected need not be a Parsi as is expected due to the Parsi lineage of the group.

He also said the media were doing lot of speculation on the successor hunt. "In fact, the idea of setting up a selection committee was formed about 10 years ago and some of the parameters for selection criteria were set by me,” said Ratan Tata.