HCLTech Engineering and R&D head Sukamal Banerjee quits

HCLTech veteran Sukamal Banerjee who led Engineering and R&D Services’ (ERS’) global strategy and investments around emerging technology transformations has resigned, sources aware of the development said, in what is a crucial exit for India's third largest IT firm.

As corporate vice president - ERS sales (high-tech & communication) and head - of IoT WoRKS, he was also the global head for defining market strategy, P&L, and leading business development teams across digital engineering, semiconductors and telecom to drive new business growth. These businesses contribute more than $1 billion annually to HCLTech's revenue.

Banerjee led a global team of over 20,000 employees, according to his LinkedIn profile.

“Banerjee resigned in February. He was heading the overall telecom and software engineering side of the business. ERS is a $2 billion-plus revenue vertical, and Banerjee was responsible for nearly $1 billion of that revenue given the areas he was heading,” said one of the sources.

According to the company’s FY22 annual report, HCLTech’s ERS vertical-- one of the three core business divisions of the company apart from IT and Business Services (ITBS), and Products & Platforms (P&P) — clocked in revenue of around $1.82 billion in FY22. That has likely grown a lot in FY23.

Detailed queries sent to HCLTech over email didn’t elicit any response at the time of publishing.

During his 26-year tenure with the company, Banerjee has been instrumental in establishing HCL's market leadership in the engineering outsourcing business, as well as in establishing some of the company's Top 5 accounts and large-scale partnership agreements. He has led the company's expansion into new geographic markets, vertical market segments, and also pioneered wins of new service lines

Banerjee's departure from HCLTech adds to the list of senior leadership exits in 2023. Earlier, another significant exit was that of Ravi Kumar S, who served as the President of Infosys Global Services Organization. Kumar was recently named the global CEO of Cognizant.

Rajan Kohli, who had been with Wipro for over three decades and was in charge of the company's Integrated Digital, Engineering, and Application Services Business Line, has also resigned, according to media reports.