Big churn in Infosys: Balakrishnan to head Lodestone

In the first significant reshuffle after recalling founder NR Narayan Murthy, Infosys on Tuesday replaced its subsidiary Lodestone's chairman BG Srinivas with V Balakrishnan, its former chief financial officer.

Balakrishnan, a director on the country's second-largest software services firm's board, headed Infosys's BPO, Finacle and India Business Unit operations.

Srinivas, too a board member, was head of the firm's Europe and global financial services and insurance. Before heading Infosys's BPO and Finacle operations, Balakrishnan served as the firm's chief financial officer. The change assumes importance in the backdrop of Infosys calling back its founder N R Narayan Murthy as the executive chairman following the firm's repeated below-expected performance and its losing market share to rivals like TCS, Cognizant and HCL Technologies.

Infosys in a statement said: "V Balakrishnan has been appointed the chairman of Lodestone and BG Srinivas will continue to be a key member of the Board of Lodestone." However, the company termed the move as a regular shuffling of portfolios. Infosys said: "This move is part of the regular re-allocation of portfolios to meet the company's strategic objectives. The integration of Lodestone is progressing as per plan."

In its annual report for 2012-13, Infosys said the board of directors of Lodestone include BG Srinivas, Ronald Hafner, V Balakrishnan, Stephen R Pratt and UB Pravin Rao. Infosys acquired Swiss SAP implementation firm Lodestone on October 22, 2012 for 330 million Swiss Francs (about Rs 1,932 crore), a move aimed at strengthening its consulting practice and increasing revenues from its European operations.

The acquisition, an all cash deal, is the biggest by Infosys so far. Headquartered in Zurich, Lodestone advises international companies on strategy and process optimisation, and provides business transformation solutions enabled by SAP's enterprise solutions.

It posted revenues of 221 million Swiss Francs (about Rs 1,317 crore) in 2012 and has a headcount of 1,200 as of January 2013.