Stability At Helm Likely For IT Cos During 2025

Leadership churn is usually high at tough times. As next year is likely to witness demand recovery in the global IT services industry, top level changes are expected to be low. We have seen many top leaders taking charge this year - Pareekh Jain, Founder, Pareekh Consulting, tells Bizz Buzz

Bengaluru: Next year is likely to see more stability at the top management level of Indian IT industry after a slew of changes seen in 2024. According to analysts, leadership churn is expected to be low in 2025 as demand recovery in the global IT industry will help easing pressure at the top.

“Leadership churn is usually high at tough times. As next year is likely to witness demand recovery in the global IT services industry, top level changes are expected to be low,” Pareekh Jain, an IT outsourcing advisor & Founder of Pareekh Consulting, told Bizz Buzz.

“We have seen many top leaders taking charge this year. These leaders will be at least given 2-3 years of tenure by the board for implementing their strategies,” Jain added.

Notably, the 2024 saw several top level changes as boards brought in new leaders as performance of many companies faltered owing to tepid demand. For instance, Srinivas Pallia took over as CEO and Managing Director of Wipro and succeeded Thierry Delaporte, who stepped down as the Bengaluru-headquartered company lagged in revenue growth as compared to its peers.

After taking over, Pallia has made several top level changes by promoting internal candidates for manning important operations.

Malay Joshi as CEO of Americas 1, Hari Shetty as Chief Strategist and Sales Excellence Officer, Vinay Firake as President of APMEA, Sandhya Arun as Chief Technology Officer, and Srikumar Rao as leader of the Engineering Edge division have been done under Pallia’s leadership.

Similarly, Tech Mahindra’s new CEO brought in several new leaders this year as he took over as the CEO of the mid-tier IT services firm during latter part of 2023.

Meanwhile, 2024 also saw many moves among chief financial officers (CFO). For instance, Jayesh Sanghrajka took charge as the new CFO of Infosys after Nilanjan Roy’s departure. HCLTech elevated internal candidate Shiv Walia as the new CFO after Prateek Aggarwal’s exit.

In 2025, demand environment is likely to improve as seen in recent Accenture results. Green shoots in the all important, BFSI (banking, financial services & insurance) vertical is another indicator of better times ahead.

Sources in the know said that boards take a lenient view of CEOs when the demand environment is good. However, during tough times, usually they push for change at the top level.

According to Jain of Pareekh Consulting, while IT services firms may not see leadership churn in 2025, engineering services companies are likely to such changes owing to demand slump.