BENGALURU: Wipro’s share price slid 2.5% on the BSE following the surprise exit of its CFO Jatin Dalal on Thursday.
Dalal’s departure after a two-decade innings with the company raises concerns about the depleting pool of seasoned insiders. More than a dozen leaders have exited in the past year. It’s the fourth year of CEO Thierry Delaporte’s turnaround efforts, but that remains a work-in-progress.
Former Wipro CFO Suresh Senapaty said, “It’s sad and distressing to lose such a huge leadership talent like Jatin. While he chose to explore opportunities outside of Wipro, I am confident of Wipro’s deep finance talent strength built over time to take up the challenge and steer through the challenging transition.”
He said Dalal had made significant contributions as a finance professional for many years.
Some observers sense discontentment at the top due to the massive restructuring that Delaporte has undertaken, including the replacement of some leaders with talent from outside. In the first leg of the reorg, some 75 senior VPs and VPs, and 300 general managers exited the firm. Delaporte also brought in several senior regional leaders from outside during this period.
It’s not clear whether this was the cause, but earlier this year, several top-level executives quit. Rajan Kohli resigned as president after a nearly three-decade innings with the IT firm. He had led Wipro’s Integrated Digital, Engineering and Application Services Business line (iDEAS), and oversaw a team of over 1 lakh employees. A little before Kohli’s exit, Angan Guha, who also had spent nearly three decades in Wipro, and who oversaw a portfolio spanning financial services, manufacturing, energy & utilities, hi-tech and Canada operations, left. He had headed what Wipro calls Americas 2 strategic business unit, which contributes over 31% of Wipro’s global revenue. Guha is now CEO & MD of Pune-headquartered Birlasoft. Sanjeev Singh, who was COO at Wipro, quit recently to join CMS IT Services as CEO & MD.
Phil Fersht, CEO of US IT advisory HfS Research, said it’s been a difficult transition as Delaporte makes some painful changes. “But I sense the Board will persist with him to see this through. However, they can’t afford to lose more leadership at this point. Delaporte needs to galvanise the team and produce positive results to end the year on a strong note,” he said.
Wipro continues to lag its peers in revenue growth, and margin remains under pressure. “Wipro is struggling in its turnaround effort, has a weak mega deal pipeline and is vulnerable to vendor consolidation. We expect the company to underperform peers on growth in FY2024 and in the medium term,” wrote Kotak Institutional Equities’ analysts Kawaljeet Saluja, Sathishkumar S and Vamshi Krishna. “Some of the changes may have been necessary to check underperformance. However, the loss of key leaders continuing into the fourth year of turnaround will not be viewed favourably,” they said.
Some said Dalal had disagreements with certain others in the management on low-margin deals that require a great deal of effort to make it margin accretive. In many cases, CFOs shoot down business proposals that are not aiding margins.
Asked about this, Wipro said in a statement: “Jatin has been a strong pillar of our leadership team, core to the organisational transformation under CEO, Thierry Delaporte. He has had strong, positive relationships with Wipro’s entire leadership team. Any insinuations to the contrary are categorically false. After a successful 20+ year career at Wipro, eight of them as CFO, Jatin Dalal has decided on his own accord to explore new career challenges. As part of our succession planning, Aparna has been the identified leader for the last few years, and was being prepared for this role.”
Dalal’s departure after a two-decade innings with the company raises concerns about the depleting pool of seasoned insiders. More than a dozen leaders have exited in the past year. It’s the fourth year of CEO Thierry Delaporte’s turnaround efforts, but that remains a work-in-progress.
Former Wipro CFO Suresh Senapaty said, “It’s sad and distressing to lose such a huge leadership talent like Jatin. While he chose to explore opportunities outside of Wipro, I am confident of Wipro’s deep finance talent strength built over time to take up the challenge and steer through the challenging transition.”
He said Dalal had made significant contributions as a finance professional for many years.
Some observers sense discontentment at the top due to the massive restructuring that Delaporte has undertaken, including the replacement of some leaders with talent from outside. In the first leg of the reorg, some 75 senior VPs and VPs, and 300 general managers exited the firm. Delaporte also brought in several senior regional leaders from outside during this period.
It’s not clear whether this was the cause, but earlier this year, several top-level executives quit. Rajan Kohli resigned as president after a nearly three-decade innings with the IT firm. He had led Wipro’s Integrated Digital, Engineering and Application Services Business line (iDEAS), and oversaw a team of over 1 lakh employees. A little before Kohli’s exit, Angan Guha, who also had spent nearly three decades in Wipro, and who oversaw a portfolio spanning financial services, manufacturing, energy & utilities, hi-tech and Canada operations, left. He had headed what Wipro calls Americas 2 strategic business unit, which contributes over 31% of Wipro’s global revenue. Guha is now CEO & MD of Pune-headquartered Birlasoft. Sanjeev Singh, who was COO at Wipro, quit recently to join CMS IT Services as CEO & MD.
Phil Fersht, CEO of US IT advisory HfS Research, said it’s been a difficult transition as Delaporte makes some painful changes. “But I sense the Board will persist with him to see this through. However, they can’t afford to lose more leadership at this point. Delaporte needs to galvanise the team and produce positive results to end the year on a strong note,” he said.
Wipro continues to lag its peers in revenue growth, and margin remains under pressure. “Wipro is struggling in its turnaround effort, has a weak mega deal pipeline and is vulnerable to vendor consolidation. We expect the company to underperform peers on growth in FY2024 and in the medium term,” wrote Kotak Institutional Equities’ analysts Kawaljeet Saluja, Sathishkumar S and Vamshi Krishna. “Some of the changes may have been necessary to check underperformance. However, the loss of key leaders continuing into the fourth year of turnaround will not be viewed favourably,” they said.
Some said Dalal had disagreements with certain others in the management on low-margin deals that require a great deal of effort to make it margin accretive. In many cases, CFOs shoot down business proposals that are not aiding margins.
Asked about this, Wipro said in a statement: “Jatin has been a strong pillar of our leadership team, core to the organisational transformation under CEO, Thierry Delaporte. He has had strong, positive relationships with Wipro’s entire leadership team. Any insinuations to the contrary are categorically false. After a successful 20+ year career at Wipro, eight of them as CFO, Jatin Dalal has decided on his own accord to explore new career challenges. As part of our succession planning, Aparna has been the identified leader for the last few years, and was being prepared for this role.”
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