Subha Tatavarti resigns as Wipro’s chief technology officer

Wipro Ltd has announced the resignation of chief technology officer Subha Tatavarti in the closing hours of Monday. She was one of the executives brought in by former chief executive Thierry Delaporte.

“Ms. Subha Tatavarti, Chief Technology Officer, resigned from the services of the Company to pursue opportunities outside Wipro,” read the company’s filing to stock exchanges late Monday. The filing further added that 16 August would be her last working day.

Tatavarti joined the Bengaluru-based IT services company in March 2021 from American retail giant Walmart Inc, where she headed the company’s product, technology development and commercialization of enterprise infrastructure businesses, besides its security, data science and edge platforms.

Replacement not announced

Wipro did not immediately announce Tatavarti’s replacement.

Her departure marks the fifth such change in the company’s senior management personnel since Srini Pallia took over as CEO on 6 April, a little over four months ago.

Malay Joshi took over as the boss of the company’s largest market unit, Americas 1, from Pallia, who headed the unit before his elevation to CEO, just four days after the latter was announced as Wipro’s boss.

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In less than a month since the previous development, Hari Shetty was announced as the company’s chief strategist and sales excellence officer. On 10 May, Anis Chenchah resigned as president of Wipro’s Asia Pacific, India, Middle East and Africa (“APMEA”) region, citing personal reasons, and was replaced by Vinay Firake, a company veteran with more than 28 years of experience.

A week later, Amit Choudhary, the company’s chief operating officer (COO), put in his papers to pursue opportunities outside the organisation. He was replaced by Sanjeev Jain.

An email sent to Wipro went unanswered until press time.

On expected lines

Analysts said the shake-up at the top of one of India’s largest software services companies was expected.

“One shouldn't read much into it. The CEO has to form his own senior management team. Over the last few years, Wipro had become top heavy and hence it is good that it is losing some senior executives,” said Shriram Subramanian, founder and managing director of InGovern Research Services, which is a corporate governance advisory firm.

“Some senior management churn is expected in the initial year of the CEO change," said Kotak Institutional Equities analysts Kawaljeet Saluja, Sathishkumar S, and Vamshi Krishna as part of a note dated 18 July. "The focus will be on minimizing the churn, ensuring the retention of senior leaders and navigating people changes smoothly. Gaps in leadership will be filled with a mix of internal promotions and external hires while ensuring continuity in client relationships.”

“Srini Pallia is a well-regarded leader in Wipro and is deal-driven. Strengthening execution is the key priority. Other key priorities are developing AI-integrated solutions and achieving better integration of Capco and Rizing,” added the Kotak analysts.

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“As Srini called out that structures and strategies are not changing, but leadership will evolve," Saurabh Govil, chief human resources officer of Wipro, had said in a reply to a query on managing senior executive churn at the company’s post-earnings call with analysts on 19 April. "There is a living organization. There will be some people who would move one kind of stuff. But there is no major disruption in the way we are going to work, organize ourselves. So, I don't see that much of a challenge as we move forward.”

Wipro reported $2.64 billion in total revenue for the three months ending June 2024, down 1.1% from the preceding three months.

The revenue decline, which followed two consecutive quarters of flat growth, lagged estimates of 26 analysts polled by Bloomberg who had expected the company to report a revenue of $2.66 billion.

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Last fiscal, Wipro was the only IT services company of the country's four largest to end the 12 months through March 2024 with a revenue decline. The Bengaluru-based company reported $10.8 billion in revenue, which is a 3.8% decline from the year-ago period.