Infosys has appointed Ritika Suri as head of mergers & acquisitions (M&As), reflecting the company’s new-found aggression in the M&A landscape. Suri joined Infosys a couple of months ago.
Earlier, she was senior vice-president at German software maker SAP. Senior Infosys officials say Suri is based out of the US and brings to the table immense experience in client geographies, where most of the acquisition targets are located.
At the company’s annual analyst meeting in Pune earlier this month, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer (MD & CEO) Vishal Sikka had said the company would pursue an “active inorganic strategy”.
Among the areas he had highlighted for inorganic growth were automation, artificial intelligence, analytics and internet of things, and collaboration technologies. According to a senior company official, Suri’s appointment as head of M&A was primarily triggered by the fact that Infosys had appointed M&A head Deepak Padaki as head of strategy and corporate planning.
“Now that Vishal (Sikka) has laid out a new strategy, which needs effective execution, we looked at some internal candidates and Deepak was found suitable. For the role of M&A head, the company was primarily looking for somebody based out of the Valley and with good exposure to global companies. Ritika was found suitable for that role,” said a company official.
Infosys, which has been sitting on huge cash reserves, has often been criticised for not pursuing an active M&A strategy.
After Sikka took charge as MD & CEO in August this year, he has been vocal about filling the technological gap by acquiring companies that can bring new technological capabilities.
“While our core focus on the organic growth strategy continues, we believe it is necessary to complement this with an active inorganic strategy. We are interested in the acquisition of small, innovative companies,” Sikka had said at the analysts meet.
“We are not interested in acquiring technologies from yesterday, but in acquiring technologies of tomorrow.” As of September 30, the company had total cash and cash equivalents of Rs 33,616 crore.
Apart from M&A initiatives, Suri will also be responsible for forging deeper ties with the start-up ecosystem, for which Infosys has already set aside $100 million.
The company also plans to invest in a few start-ups, apart from handholding these for better market access. Infy Risk and Compliance head Kanchinadham likely to quit Parvatheesam Kanchinadham, chief risk and compliance officer and company secretary of Infosys is planning to leave the company.
According to highly-placed sources, he has decided to move on after the Bangalore-based company decided to transfer him to another department.
“He has got an opportunity in another company in a similar profile like what he was doing at Infosys and most probably he will take up that role,” sources close to him said.
Infosys did not reply to a specific query while Kanchinadham could not be reached for his comments. However, sources also added that the company is in the process of evaluating some internal candidates for this role and is expected to announce the name pretty soon.
Kanchinadham, who holds a Master of Business Laws degree from the National Law School of India and a Master of Business Administration degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was appointed as the chief compliance officer in April this year after Nithyananda Radhakrishnan resigned from the company to pursue entrepreneurial dream.
