Infosys global sales head Basab Pradhan quits to start own venture

Mumbai: Weeks after N.R. Narayana Murthy returned to Infosys, the country's second largest software exporter today saw its global sales and marketing head Basab Pradhan quitting the company.

Mr. Pradhan, who was the member of the Infosys executive council, said he is planning to start his own venture.

The exit comes just ahead of Infosys announcing first quarter numbers on July 12.

"Leaving Infosys to go back to the start-up world. To all my friends at Infosys, please stay in touch," Mr. Pradhan tweeted this evening.

The company gave no reason for Pradhan's departure in its brief email statement and Infosys officials declined to give details, according to news agency Reuters.

"We confirm that Mr. Basab Pradhan has resigned. We wish him all the best," Reuters said citing the statement.

Mr. Pradhan's departure comes at a time when Mr. Murthy has returned to the company as executive chairman last month.

Mr. Murthy is trying to rebuild the company, which has been posting disappointing numbers for the past many quarters. During the past 18 months, the once-cynosure of the domestic IT industry lost many good hands, with its HR head and board member T.V. Mohandas Pai quitting on April 16, 2012 amid the company reporting another set of poor results.

On the same day, another senior executive Shaji Farooq, quit to join rival Wipro after spending over a decade in the financial services vertical.

Prior to that, Infosys lost its sales head Subhash Dhar and chief operating officer of BPO division Ritesh Idnani. This was Mr. Pradhan's second innings at Infosys. He had returned to Infosys in 2011, when the company restructured its strategy as part of Infosys 3.0 plan.

He had worked at Infosys between 1995 and 2005. He left Infosys to start a venture-funded startup Gridstone Research, in the area of unstructured data in financial information.

Details of Mr. Pradhan's new venture could not be ascertained immediately.