Infosys names Kamath chairman, Kris co-chairman, Shibulal CEO

In a major top-level management restructuring, India’s large software firm Infosys named veteran banker K V Kamath as the new chairman to succeed founder N R Narayana Murthy , who retires in August.

Infosys Technologies has also appointed current CEO S Gopalakrishnan as the Executive co-Chairman and promoted COO S D Shibulal as CEO and MD.   Murthy, who turns 65 in August, would become Chairman Emeritus.   These appointments, effective August 21, 2011 were approved at the company’s board meeting.  Kamath, 63, is currently an independent director on the board of Infosys. He is the non-Executive Chairman of ICICI Bank, the country’s largest private lender.   “I am very very pleased with (all) these appointments,” Murthy told media after the board meeting.  The names of Kamath, Gopalakrishnan and Shibulal were recommended by the three-member Nominations Committee, chaired by Jeffrey S Lehman.   Kris Gopalakrishnan said that the company will name three new directors by June 11, 2011. He stressed that Infosys was aligning various units under four business groups.   Infosys Technologies will now be renamed Infosys Limited. All new appointments would be effective from August 21, 2011.

Headquartered in Bangalore, Infosys has 64 offices and 63 development centres across the US, the UK, China, Australia and Japan, among other countries. The company and its subsidiaries had a workforce of 1,30,820 employees as of March 31, 2011.