Mindtree’s New CEO Lists The Company’s Top Priorities

Mindtree Ltd.’s new chief said instilling confidence in clients and retaining key employees are among the top priorities of the software services provider.

Most of Mindtree’s mid-senior level employees continue to remain with the company despite leadership change, Debashis Chatterjee, who took over as chief executive officer earlier this month, said in his first interaction with analysts through a conference call.

Chatterjee was named CEO and managing director of Mindtree after his predecessor Rostow Ravanan quit following Larsen & Toubro Ltd.’s hostile takeover of the mid-sized information technology company. Ravanan had quit along with the then Chairman Krishnakumar Natarajan and former Vice Chairman Parasarthy NS. Kotak Institutional Equities had raised concerns over high key employee attrition after the exit of Mindtree’s co-founders.

Brokerage Anand Rathi said Mindtree’s top 10 accounts were being managed by its co-founders Parthasarathy, Ravanan and Natarajan, divided according to the nature of the deals and relationships with clients. The ability of Mindtree’s new leader to connect with the existing clientele is crucial, it had said in a report. According to Goldman Sachs, the CEO believes this leadership is capable to sustain business growth momentum.

Chatterjee also said his interaction with the company’s top 20 clients has been encouraging with a positive commitment from them.

While he reiterated Mindtree’s aim to beat the industry’s revenue growth, a depreciation in rupee and strong deal pipeline is expected to boost the company’s margin in the ongoing financial year.

Mindtree’s margin has fallen to its lowest among peers—software services providers with a market capitalisation of Rs 8,000-30,000 crore—over the last couple of years. It contracted sharply in the quarter ended June on stronger rupee, higher visa costs and the company’s special payout to its employees to mark its 20th anniversary.

About a possible merger of Mindtree with Larsen & Toubro Infotech Ltd., Chatterjee said the company for now will operate independently but doesn’t rule out collaborations with L&T Infotech since their portfolios complement each other.

Last month, L&T CEO SN Subrahmanyan, too, had said a merger of Mindtree with L&T Infotech and L&T Technology Services isn’t on the cards. “Mindtree will be kept distinct from L&T Infotech, L&T Technology Services and the recently-formed business division L&T-Nxt,” he had said.