Will Infosys get a foreigner as CEO?

BANGALORE, INDIA: Who would be the next CEO of Infosys Technologies? This question has once again popped up following a media report that the IT outsourcing giant is expected to have a non-Indian CEO in the next 2-3 years.

Citing a report titled 'Don't fix it if it ain't broken' from BNP Paribas, The Times of India said that Steve Pratt, the CEO of Infosys Consulting, is set to become the next CEO of Infosys Technologies. This would break the tradition at Infosys where the COO has always gone on to become CEO, the report added.

Earlier it was rumoured that the stunning performance of SD Shibulal, the chief operating officer of Infosys, has won the support of founder and chief mentor NR Narayana Murthy in the ongoing race for the post of the company's next CEO.

As 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.

Founder chairman Narayana Murthy is due to retire in August this year and the question as to who would replace him has given rise to enough speculations. Though it has been speculated that CEO S Gopalakrishnan may step into that role and Shibulal would be promoted as CEO, nothing has crystallized so far. However, the BNP Paribas report says such a transition is a possibility.

Even if Shibulal becomes the CEO he might play a transitionary role for the eventual handover of the CEO role to the company's first non-founder CEO two years later, it said, adding that the views are that of an analyst and not part of any management briefing.

Interestingly, at Wipro the talk is about the 'son-rise', while Infosys, is thinking of a non-Indian.