Possible Reasons Behind Vishal Sikka’s Resignation

Vishal Sikka’s resignation from Infosys came as a blow to the Indian IT industry as well as to the stock markets. Sikka, the first non-promoter CEO of Infosys, resigned from his post after completing three years at the company.

Post the announcement, a lot of speculations have been going on regarding the reasons behind Sikka’s resignation from Infosys.

BW Businessworld presents some of the possible reasons explaining why Sikka resigned from his post.

1. Vishal Sikka’s High Salary

Sikka’s high salary has always raised eyebrows among Infosys’ founder members. During 2016-17, his salary dropped over 67 per cent due to lower bonus payout. The cash component of Sikka’s salary was Rs 16.01 crore, down from Rs 48.73 crore in 2015-16. His total compensation, including bonus and grant of stocks, fell 7 per cent to Rs 45.11 crore in 2016-17 from Rs 48.41 crore in the previous fiscal.

2. Ongoing Tussle

Lately, there has been a tussle going on between Infosys board of directors and founder-shareholders, especially Narayana Murthy, over governance issues. If media reports are to be believed, Murthy have even said that he has received confirmation from at least five Infosys employees saying Sikka is more of a Chief Technology Officer material and not Chief Executive Officer.

3. Appointment Of Punita Sinha

Punita Sinha, wife of Jayant Sinha who is Minister of State for Finance, was appointed an independent director last year. The appointment raised concerns with founders but the board says she is eminently qualified for the job, according to a report by The Economic Times.

4. Sikka’s Idea Of Business Through Acquisitions

Sikka have always mentioned that IT sector should adopt changing business scenario by way of acquisitions. However, there have been reports stating a lot of Infosys board members as against this idea.

In his resignation letter, Sikka mentioned that continuous distractions and ‘the constant drumbeat of the same issues over and over again’ is what has diminished the ‘excitement and passion’ despite so many achievements and transformations in his journey.