Cognizant's new CEO: 10 things to know about Ravi Kumar

Cognizant on January 12 announced the appointment of former Infosys president Ravi Kumar as its new chief executive officer, effective immediately. Ravi Kumar succeeds outgoing CEO Brian Humphries, who will stay with the company as special advisor, before departing on March 15.

Analysts had previously said that Cognizant’s underperformance warranted action from the board and that a change in leadership was needed. At the time Ravi Kumar's appointment was announced, Moneycontrol had reported that he was pipped to be a CEO candidate.

Here are the top 10 things to know about Kumar, the new chief of the Nasdaq-listed IT services company that was founded more than a decade after Infosys:

• Kumar, who recently relinquished his role at Infosys, had a 20-year career at the IT firm where he held various leadership roles. The industry veteran most recently served as president of Infosys from January 2016 to October 2022, after which he left the IT firm.


• In 2017, he had been appointed as the deputy chief operating officer (COO) of Infosys and was widely tipped to be the company's COO. But Infosys later did away with the post in 2021 following incumbent UB Pravin Rao's retirement.


• Kumar, who has taken over the CEO position of Cognizant effective immediately, was to join the company on January 16 as President of Cognizant Americas, a role which will now go to 24-year Cognizant veteran Surya Gummadi.


• Under his leadership, Infosys unveiled Metaverse Foundry, where it developed over 100 use cases to help clients navigate this new and ground-breaking technology. Moneycontrol caught up with the former Infosys president back in February 2022, to understand how Metaverse Foundry reached a tipping point so quickly.


• In his last role as president, Kumar led the Infosys Global Services Organization across all industry segments. He drove digital transformation, consulting, traditional technology, engineering, data and analytics, cloud, and infra services.


• During his time with Infosys, Kumar oversaw Infosys' business operations in India, Latin America, Japan, and China. He also led the Infosys Public Services and Infosys Consulting Services subsidiaries.


• He joined Infosys in 2002 and started his career as a nuclear scientist at the Bhabha Atomic Research Center.


• Since then, Kumar has held various roles at Infosys including executive vice president, global head of the insurance, healthcare, and cards and Payments business unit, and senior vice president & global head of consulting & systems integration.


• Kumar earned his bachelor's degree in engineering from Shivaji University and his Master’s in Business Administration from Xavier Institute of Management, India.


• Kumar, who will also become a member of the Board at Cognizant, currently serves on the boards of directors of TransUnion, and Digimarc Corporation. He also serves on the board of governors of the New York Academy of Sciences and the Board of Directors of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.