He was part of HCL’s founding team.
Darren Oberst, who headed HCL Technologies’ software and products business, has left his role as senior corporate vice president of the company.
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History In The Company
He had joined in 2014 as head of corporate development and then moved to lead HCL Software two years later.
The company revealed on Monday that he quit the firm to “pursue another opportunity”.
He was part of HCL’s founding team.
Contributions
In his role as senior corporate vice president, he led the division which contributed 11-12% of the company’s nearly $10 billion in annual revenue.
He was responsible for product development, sales, operations, and strategy.
In the meantime, the interim leadership will take over this week.
In parallel, it will conduct interviews of internal and external candidates to replace Oberst.
Segment Growth Hindered
Its BSE filing added, “With the change, HCL also plans to align its entire suite of products and platforms allowing for greater synergies.”
HCL Software includes select IBM products acquired in 2018 for $1.8 billion.
It is also a significant focus area for the company.
Delay In Deal Closures
The segment growth declined in the last quarter by 8% due to delay in deal closures.
Oberst had stated during the September quarter earnings presentation that a large contract had slipped followed by a number of other “small to mid-sized deals so it was a handful”.
None of those deals got closed and are still a work in progress.
Profit And Revenue Growth
Net profit rose 1.7% sequentially in the September quarter driven by revenue growth of 2.9% to Rs 20,655 crore.
Analysts are of the view that although the company had kept up its performance through the pandemic, it has lagged behind on execution in the recent quarters.
C Vijayakumar, CEO of HCL Technologies, said that the company’s “fundamental book of business on the product side remains intact”.
Words From The Leader
He further reassured that “the core of this business is intact, though we overall expect this year to be flat to one person growth compared to the low single-digit growth that we had shared earlier.”
The company is on track to modernise “these products and getting them into the leaders quadrant in various industry analyst reports”.
P&P is a strategic business of HCL Technologies and is backed by founder Shiv Nadar.