Cognizant Becomes ‘CEO Factory’; 5 Ex-Employees Become CEOs In 30 Days!

After following Cognizant CEO’s restructuring initiative, many top executives at Cognizant had left the company. Despite the COVID-19 resultant economic crisis, these senior executives have now found top job roles in companies smaller than Cognizant.

The companies hiring these employees must be taking advantage of their experience in the top IT company during the period when Cognizant surpassed every one of its peers.

Read on to find out what the ex-senior employees are doing now…

Cognizant’s Former Employees Now CEOs At Leading Companies!

1. Gajen Kandiah, the former President of Cognizant’s over the digital business of $2 billion, worked with the company for 16 years. Kandiah is now the CEO of a Japanese conglomerate Hitachi’s subsidiary, Hitachi Vantara. The US-based Hitachi Vantara with a workforce of 11,000 offers data infrastructure governance, and cloud-based products, digital solutions, and other data management services.
2. Nirav Patel, the former global head of Cognizant’s $2 billion communications, media, and technology business, worked with the company for 20 years. Now Patel is the CEO of Bristlecone, a Mahindra Group company. The US-based Bristlecone with a workforce of 1800 consultants offers supply chain consulting and has a system integration business.
3. Kaushik Bhaumik, the former executive vice president of Cognizant, responsible for the company’s $3-billion healthcare business with over 40,000 people, worked with Cognizant for 16 years. Bhaumik has now become the CEO and founder of Glide Health which specializes in applying AI/ML methods to overcome healthcare challenges.
4. Karthik Krishnamurthy, the former global head of markets in Cognizant’s digital business, worked with the company for 18 years. Krishnamurty is now CEO of Collabera. Collabera with a workforce of 16,000 offers talent solutions and woks with 70% of the Fortune 500 companies.
5. Venkat Krishnaswamy, the former vice-chairman of Cognizant’s healthcare and life sciences business, worked with the company for 16 years. Krishnaswamy is now the Chairman of Firstsource Healthcare’s advisory board, a business process management (BPM) firm.  

What Do Experts Have to Say?

Rod Bourgeois, head of research in DeepDive Equity Research, said that before 2016, Cognizant rapidly outgrew its peers and had a long-standing position with a stock favorite amongst investors.  He said, “As a result, in the market for management talent, Cognizant staff tend to benefit from the company’s historical reputation as a growth leader.”

For the past year, many IT behemoths, like Capgemini, Accenture, IBM, now Wipro have undergone leadership transitions.

A partner in a top-tier executive search firm pointed out that the first-generation IT services talent comes from a leadership pedigree focused on the bulking up game. He said, “They may not get a seat at the table in driving high-end consulting conversations. However, the market still has an appetite to  hire leaders with scale-up skills in mid-sized assets.”

He also posed a question saying, “But the big question to ask is how many boards have opted to evaluate leaders coming out of the Indian IT services ecosystem?”