A senior Wipro Ltd executive overseeing a third of the company’s business has resigned as chief executive of the US fintech company, marking one other high-profile departure from India’s fourth-largest IT services company.
Srini Rajamani, who joined Wipro in 2005 and rose to director of life sciences and consumer sciences, will take the helm of Opus Technologies, a Georgian fintech company specializing in card management systems and payment gateways. With roughly 800 employees worldwide, Opus has offices in Pune and Hyderabad, as well as locations within the UK, US and Canada.
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In a telephone conversation with Mint Late Sunday, Rajamani confirmed his decision to step down after nearly twenty years at Wipro. His last day on the Bengaluru-based software giant is on Monday.
I’m heading into more agile waters
Rajamani attributed his move to the appeal of smaller, specialized firms.
“Today, customers of IT services companies want to be in the top five accounts, not the top 25 accounts of a software service provider,” he said. “Customers prefer to work with companies that have a razor-sharp focus, and Opus is leading the way in the fintech domain with deep expertise in payment solutions.”
Wipro, which generated revenue of $10.8 billion last yr, got about 18.8%, or $2 billion, from its consumer business and 13.2%, or $1.4 billion, from its care clients. health. While total revenue declined 2.2% year-over-year, healthcare grew 8.5%, offset by a 4.2% decline in the buyer business.
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Rajamani’s exit marks one more departure since Wipro appointed veteran Srinivas Pallia as the company’s CEO in April last yr. His departure follows Laura Langdon, who stepped down as Wipro’s chief marketing officer in December and was replaced by Ranjita Ghosh. Management attrition at India’s fourth-largest IT services company is nothing latest.
Despite Pallia’s preference for promoting internal candidates to top positions, the company experienced significant turnover. Over the past two years, a minimum of 30 senior executives on the senior vp level and above have left the company on account of higher opportunities or limited growth prospects under former CEO Thierry Delaporte.
Rajamani’s move to a smaller company is also not unprecedented. Rajan Kohli, who led Wipro’s digital and consulting business for 28 years, left in August 2023 to move CitiusTech, a Mumbai-based health technology company.
During his tenure, Rajamani helped Wipro sign a five-year, $500 million take care of New York-based cosmetics giant Estée Lauder for 2021.
Wipro is yet to comment on its departure. An email sent to the company on Monday went unanswered.
IT exodus
The trend goes beyond Wipro.
At Tech Mahindra Ltd, long-time CEO CP Gurnani co-founded Singapore-based startup AIonOS in April last yr, and Jagdish Mitra, one other Tech Mahindra veteran, founded Humanize, a Bengaluru-based AI startup.
“This migration is driven by several factors,” said Ritu Sethi, technology, outsourcing and offshoring partner at ABC Consultants, an executive search firm based in New Delhi. “(crucial of them) is the will to create and construct the organization of your personal activities on a blank canvas, the power to introduce faster and more visible changes while having a direct impact on stakeholders, as well as financial incentives, including significant equity capital and direct shares within the company.
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Sethi also pointed to the hierarchical structure of large organizations, where climbing into management positions often requires years of waiting, as one other driving force.
