Cognizant Has Become A 'New CEO Factory'; Is It A Concern For Employees or Advantage? - Report

IT major Cognizant Technology Solutions has become a CEO factory among other renowned companies. Many key seniors who left the company recently are currently heading other global firms. 

Earlier in July, three former heads of Cognizant were appointed CEOs of large global companies. Looking back at their work in Cognizant, they were heading multi-billion dollar verticals and each had over a decade of experience with the software major.

Meanwhile, an official of a recruitment firm said: “Cognizant has a very good succession plan to help its employees scale up. But it is unprecedented that the market has identified so many CEOs from just one company in a short span of time."

As per The Hindu Business Line report, on July 28, Nirav Patel was named President and CEO at Bristlecone, which is a Mahindra Group company. Patel was earlier leading the global markets at Cognizant’s Communications, Media and Technology business that contributed over $3 billion of the company’s annual revenue.

Before that on July 13, Hitachi Vantara appointed Gajen Kandiah as the CEO. He had worked for over 15 years with Cognizant and was leading the company’s over $3 billion-dollar Digital business. Similarly, on July 10, Collabera, a global technology talent solutions provider, appointed Karthik Krishnamurthy as the CEO. He was SVP and Global Markets Leader at Cognizant.

Kamal Karanth, co-founder of Xpheno, a specialist staffing firm, commented on the same stating that "these officials represented very strong and seasoned second line leadership. The scale handled by these leaders is one of the best in the industry The strong vertical orientation and very deep domain depth coupled with length of experience make them favourable choices."

Days after the new Cognizant CEO Brian Humphries took over in April, many senior officials started to leave in June 2019. Taking a look at the names - Kaushik Bhaumik, a key member of Cognizant’s executive team, left in June 2019 to become a co-founder and CEO of Glide Health. He was part of Cognizant’s Healthcare business, a $3 billion industry leader with over 40,000 employees, Hindu Business Line further reported. 

After him came Debashis Chatterjee, President, Global Delivery and Digital Systems and Technology at Cognizant; he was next to leave to become CEO and Managing Director of Mindtree in July 2019. 
During that same month, another Cognizant veteran Vipul Khanna became MD & CEO of Firstsource Solutions. He led a start-up practice into a $2 billion, top-5 global BPO business.

Finally looking into July 2020, three senior Cognizant officials identified as Pradeep Shilige, Head of Global Delivery; Ramkumar Ramamoorthy, CMD, Cognizant India; and Karen McLoughlin, CFO took an exit from the company. 

Seems like, the market is watching with interest where they are headed too, Hindu Business Line also states.