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Infosys HR chief Mohandas Pai quits
Shubhadeep Choudhury/TNS

New Delhi, April 15
Infosys today announced that Mohandas Pai, the Human Resources chief, and K Dinesh, co-founder, member of the board and head of quality, information systems and communication design group, would be quitting the company. Their resignation would come into effect from June 11, 2011. The company has reported y-o-y growth of 17.1 per cent and sequential (q-o-q) growth of 2.1 per cent in its net profit for the quarter ended March 31, 2011.

Discounting speculations that he could join politics, Pai said he would work in the higher education arena. “Higher education is one of the most important areas for the development of our country. I am already on the Board of four universities in Karnataka. I will become a member of more such boards and help in the growth of higher education,” Pai said.

He said having remained in the position of director, human resources, for five years, he decided to call it quits to pave the way for induction of young talents in leadership roles in the company. “I told Narayana Murthy about my decision about nine months back. He tried to persuade me to keep working with Infosys. But I had made up my mind,” Pai said.

Dinesh said he was resigning for health reasons, besides wanting to see young people fill up his shoes. He said he would available for giving suggestions to the Infosys on an informal basis.

S Gopalkrishnan, CEO and managing director of Infosys, said when people like Pai and Dinesh leave a company, they would be inevitably missed. He categorically denied when a reporter asked him if Pai had been asked to put in his papers. Gopalkrishnan refused to name the successors of Pai and Dinesh. He said since both of them would remain with Infosys till June 11, it would not be proper to name their successors now.

Infosys today also announced that Ravi Venkatesan, who recently resigned from the position of chairman of Microsoft India after holding that position for about seven years, would join the Infosys as an Additional Director with immediate effect. It is anticipated that the meeting of the Infosys board of directors on coming April 30 will see the restructuring plan being set into motion. Gopalkrishnan said the meeting would discuss Narayana Murthy’s retirement from post of chairman of the board in August and “related issues”.