IANS
Bangalore
Investors of Infosys yesterday approved a special resolution appointing Vishal Sikka as new chief executive and managing director from August 1 at the company’s extraordinary general meeting in Bangalore.
The $8.3bn company’s outgoing vice chairman and co-founder S Gopalakrishnan presided over the meeting.
The shareholders also approved Sikka’s appointment as a whole-time director on the company’s board from June 14, 2014 to June 13, 2019 and its decision to pay a salary of $5.08mn (Rs30.5 crore) with stock options (equity shares) valued at $2mn (Rs12 crore) per annum.
The 47-year-old former SAP executive board member replaces Infosys co-founder SD Shibulal as the company’s first outsider chief executive. Sikka’s compensation includes an annual base salary of $900,000 and an annual variable pay of $4.18mn. The meeting also endorsed two other resolutions re-appointing KV Kamath and R Seshasayee as independent directors.
“I am grateful to investors and humbled to be appointed as the company’s chief executive. I will continue to sustain the deep-rooted cultural values the company’s co-founders have created over the years,” Sikka told reporters after the meeting.
Noting that software was redefining the world by becoming all pervasive, Sikka said he would use the opportunity to serve the various industry verticals such as banking and financial services, manufacturing, energy, oil and gas and retail.
“I inherit the intuitive knowledge of the co-founders and their culture which is defined by processes, principles and planning. We will build new software by working with our customers. In manufacturing, software is making machines run automatically,” he said.
Asserting that the outlook for the IT services industry was good, Sikka expressed confidence in steering the company through the challenges it was facing and by leveraging the tremendous opportunities the new software was unfolding.
“The outlook for the IT services is good. I am confident of the future,” he said. Though Sikka will continue to live in California on the US west coast where his family stays, he will travel to Bangalore as and when required by the company’s board.
