When Debashis Chatterjee moved to Cognizant, Kolkata in the 90s, he was the IT firm's first employee in the city, with a mandate to start operations, set up infrastructure, hire key people and grow the centre. One of the first things he did was to hire his boss - Siddhartha Mukherjee, as Chatterjee felt he wasn't ready to lead, just yet.
"Debashis, or DC, as we would like to call him, is really outcome or goal-oriented. An egoless person, he hired his own boss and started what turned out to be a big centre for Cognizant in Kolkata. He has a firm exterior and a soft people oriented interior. His philosophy is “pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional”. He is not the type to sit down and brood over setbacks," former Cognizant vice-chairman and CEO Lakshmi Narayanan, who Chatterjee counts as a role model, told Moneycontrol.
Another executive who has interacted with him for decades remembers a rubber band style diary that DC used to always carry with him.
"He is a phenomenal listener and has a diary where he makes note of things. He will ask you how much time you need for a task and lets you make the effort estimate. But you have to deliver it on the date you promised because he would have made a note and will follow up with you. He is very organised and structured, in the way he arranges folders, mails, tasks. He is gently aggressive, and doesn't impose himself in every situation," the person said.
Others who have worked with him recount his obsession with perfection, attention to detail and the thoroughness with which he would prepare for a client meeting or review calls. His meticulousness and fastidiousness is not limited to work- he is known to carry currency only in a money clip wallet, sets great store by his sartorial choices and has clear preferences when it comes to airlines, seats and travel routes.
A growth mindset, people skills and lack of ego are some of DC's biggest strengths, attributes that he will be banking on as he sets about merging Mindtree with L & T Infotech, a move that will create a large IT services firm with over 81,000 employees and $3.5 Billion in revenues.
Engineering behemoth L&T, on May 6, finally announced the long-speculated merger of the two software companies. The market capitalization of the combined entity is pegged at $17.7 Billion, making it the fifth largest IT services company in India, after TCS, Infosys, Wipro and HCL Tech. While Mindtree CEO DC will lead the combined entity, L&T Infotech CEO Sanjay Jalona, who earned the moniker of Mr. Consistent, for leading a stellar turnaround of LTI, will move on.
The scale of the combined entity will help in going after larger outsourcing deals, for example, those above $100 million in total contract value. The companies also have complementary portfolios of verticals. While LTI has a strong presence in banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI), followed by the manufacturing sector, whereas for Mindtree, hi-tech and media, and retail and consumer packaged goods are key contributors.
A merger of this scale comes with its risks, the most prominent being the people factor and loss of momentum, especially at a time when there is robust demand for IT services, as more companies migrate to the cloud and digitise their operations. But, people who have worked with DC in the past believe he will be able to pull it off.
DC, 57-years old, has a Bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from Jadavpur University. He started his career with Mahindra & Mahindra and then spent seven years at TCS, before leaving to join Cognizant in 1996, where he would go on to spend the next two decades, except for a year in between where he briefly joined IBM, before returning to Cognizant.
LTI-Mindtree's scale, people say, is unlikely to daunt him, having built and run large businesses at Cognizant. Before he joined Mindtree in 2019, he was President for Global Delivery and Digital Systems and Technology for the NASDAQ-listed IT firm, which had an $8 billion portfolio. Before that, he was head of the banking and financial services vertical, a $3.5 billion business, which incidentally is the current revenue of the LTI-Mindtree combine.
"He is a past master at building and growing client relationships to admirable scale. He loves taking on first-of-its-kind projects in the industry, and delivering on them. Second, his willingness to relocate anywhere based on business demands. In the past two decades, DC has uprooted himself and his family and spent many years in Chennai, Kolkata, Pune and Bengaluru," said Ramkumar Ramamoorthy, former CMD, Cognizant India and Partner, Catalincs who worked closely with DC for over 20 years.
In fact, a recurring theme that comes up in conversations are DC's people chops, and his ability to attract leaders.
"DC's ability to build the leadership pipeline across the pyramid is an awesome trait of his. He identifies leaders when they are very young in the organisation, invests in them, gives them stretched opportunities and then brings them to the fore at the right time," said Sriram Rajagopal, managing partner at talent sourcing firm Diamondpick, and former global head of talent supply chain at Cognizant.
At the same time, Singapore-based Sriram Iyer, who was part of Cognizant's HR leadership and is now an adjunct faculty in NUS Business School, said, "Today, it just does not suffice if the CEO is able to chart the vision roadmap and enable acquisition of new clients. What is equally important for the CEO of an IT firm is the ability to be a talent magnet, especially in a heated market. That’s where DC has scored the winning goal, by attracting and retaining best-in-class talent to execute on his vision."
Iyer estimates that there are over 25 ex-Cognizant leaders (with a cumulative 350+ years of Cognizant experience) who are helming CXO and Global Leadership roles in Mindtree. Moneycontrol had featured a column by him in June 2021 on how Cognizant has become the de-facto CEO/CXO Factory for the IT Services sector. There are likely over 35 ex-Cognizant leaders with a cumulative 500 plus years of Cognizant experience helming CXO, Global and BU Leadership roles in LTI-Mindtree combined.
"The fact that these leaders in both the organisations have worked together to build billion-dollar practices together in a cohesive manner, it would truly be a sense of déjà vu as they come together one more time," Iyer said.
DC's familiarity with leaders across both organisations could help mitigate management churn and shuffle, which usually happens in large mergers.
"Managing people aspects and cultural integration is critical in M&A. Both LTI and Mindtree are well acquainted and this can help reduce integration risks. We also note that plenty of leaders in LTI and Mindtree are from CTSH(Cognizant), many of whom have worked directly with DC," Kotak analysts Kawaljeet Saluja and Sathishkumar S said in a note to clients.
This may have also tipped the scale in his favour, considering Jalona was a top performer as well, having transformed LTI from a me too midcap company to a growth leader and a gold standard among its peers.
"When DC joined Mindtree in 2019, it was a turbulent time. The founders accused L & T of a hostile takeover and had left, subsequently the senior management also saw a churn. DC rebuilt the leadership from scratch, stabilised the firm and also pursued growth doggedly," one of the persons cited above said.
A third source said, "He doesn't hesitate from hiring people who are 5 times smarter than him. He sets the vision, expects them to execute it. If you align with him and are loyal, he will take care of you," the person said.
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