Vishal Sikka, SAP's Former Star Engineer, Has Landed The CEO Job At Troubled Indian IT Firm Infosys
Last month, German software giant SAP shocked the world when it announced that Sikka was suddenly leaving the company. Sikka was its star engineer and creator of HANA, the database product that SAP has bet its future on.
Sources told Business Insider that a few things led to his departure: When the company moved from its dual-CEO structure to a single CEO in charge, Sikka was hoping for a big promotion akin to a co-CEO role and that didn't happen. (Bill McDermot took over as CEO. Former co-CEO Jim Hagemann Snabe moved onto one of SAP's powerful leadership boards).
We also heard that there was a tussle inside SAP between its American executives, of which Sikka was a prominent member, and its German contingent over how fast to invest in new technologies like the cloud. Some of that was documented in an article about Sikka in German magazine DAS E-3 and a personal blog post, not sanctioned by SAP, that Sikka wrote in response, blasting the article.
So Sikka left SAP.
And now he's going to try and fix Infosys, the iconic but troubled tech company in his native land of India.
Infosys is one of the most valuable enterprise tech companies in the world with a market cap of roughly $30 billion.
For years, Infosys also reigned as one of the most admired companies in India. But slower growth compared to its competitors has caused employees and managers to leave in droves. The company has also been looking for a new CEO for about a year too. Attrition reached 18% by the end of March and more than 11 senior executives have left in the past year, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Wall Street analyst Tom Reuner at Ovum tells Business Insider in an email comment, "Sikka will be the first CEO that is neither part of the founding generation nor an insider from Infosys. Sikka was highly regarded within SAP and his remit was to foster innovation. ... This mindset could be conducive to lead Infosys back to its past glory. ... Sikka's task is a daunting one. We envisage a bumpy road ahead."