Infosys Executive Vice President and former head of human resources Richard Lobo has resigned from the company, marking the latest in a series of top-level exits at the company. Lobo had moved to a special projects team under Parekh after Sushanth Tharappan was appointed as the head of HR last month.
“This is to inform that Richard Lobo, Executive Vice President and Senior Management Personnel, has resigned from the services of the Company. His last date with the company would be August 31, 2023. The Company places on record its deep sense of appreciation for the services rendered by him and for his contributions to the company,” Infosys informed exchanges late on August 4.
In his resignation letter to Chief Executive Officer Salil Parekh, Lobo wrote, “I’m writing to inform you of my decision to resign from my position at Infosys. I’m grateful for the opportunities and experiences I have had during my time here.”
Lobo is an Infosys veteran, and served as the head of HR at the company from 2015 to 2023.
Lobo also joined Infosys in 2000 and headed HR for some industry practices. He is an alumnus of Xavier’s Institute of Management and a mechanical engineer from the Manipal Institute of Technology.
Tharappan taking over the role of head of HR was the second change in the HR function at the company this year. In March, Shaji Mathew took over as global head of HR following Krish Shankar’s retirement.
Lobo’s exit also comes at a time that several members of Infosys top brass have exited the company, and many have gone on to become head honchos at other companies.
Well-documented are the exits of two presidents — Mohit Joshi and Ravi Kumar S — both of whom were future CEO candidates who resigned from the company within a six month span. Both have gone on to become CEOs of Infosys’ rivals: Ravi Kumar S as the CEO of Cognizant, and Mohit Joshi as the incoming CEO of Tech Mahindra where he takes charge in December.
The latest exit is of Global Head of Account Expansion Charles Salameh, who becomes the new CEO of Sangoma Technologies Corporation on September 1.
In July, Global Chief Information Security Officer and Business Head at Infosys Vishal Salvi left the company to be appointed the CEO of cybersecurity company Quick Heal. Narsimha Rao Mannepalli, EVP & Co-Head of Delivery & Head of Cloud, Infrastructure and Cybersecurity left Infosys in June after 22 years.
In March, SVP and Global Head of Engineering Services and Blockchain Gopikrishnan Konnath exited the company to join Cybage Software as President, and EVP Global Head of Sales and Enterprise Capability at Infosys BPM Kapil Jain left in April, and joined eClerx as CEO in May. Konnath and Jain were both Infosys veterans, having been at the company for 28 and 22 years respectively.
When asked about top-level exits at the company after the company presented its results for the first quarter of FY24, CEO Parekh said the company has rolled out a new leadership structure within the company.
“We have the great fortune of having incredible leadership talent within the company. And each of them, several of them are stepping up into new roles, driving the growth of this business,” he said.
In a note, Kotak Institutional Equities said that the company does have bench strength. “At the same time, we also recognize that it takes time for new leaders to settle into the roles. Further, senior leaders that departed recently may tap in to the Infosys talent pool. We do expect some transient impact although it is difficult to quantify,” the note read.
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