Last week HCL Tech (the fourth largest IT company in India) declared its quarterly (ending June 2012) results, and surprised the market and investors with an impressive performance. The company showed a growth in revenue, operating profit as well as net profit. This performance comes across as an achievement, considering that the performance of other IT players have taken a hit in recent times.
Along with an impressive result, the company announced structural changes, where in a second leadership slot was created and the company appointed Anant Gupta as President & COO for the $ 4 Billion business. Earlier, last month there had been rumors and buzz around Vineet Nayar, Vice Chairman & CEO, planning to move out and Anant being one of the prime contenders for the top position. This move, of elevating Anant to the number two slot, may relate to the need of the business to have a strong bench for the top role as well as the need of the business to have a key second in command to lead the business. For the time being, Vineet seems to be well in place as the company had earlier denied any rumors of his exit from the business.
Anant, till recently had been handling one of the key businesses – infrastructure management services, a $ 1 Billion business and one of the fastest growing amongst HCL’s line of businesses. A company statement said on the appointment – ““With an increased thrust on industrialization and profitable growth, HCL promotes Gupta as president and chief operating officer,". In his new role as President & COO for the $ 4 Billion business, his focus would be on providing effective operational leadership and ensure that the businesses are able to grow optimally.
A brief profile of Anant Gupta: Anant, an MSc. Engineering from University of Liverpool. He joined HCL as part of the start-up team at Comnet and has been with HCL for 19 years. He has been instrumental in scaling HCL’s Infrastructure Services Division to a $1 Billion business. More recently, he has led the company’s presence in the Continental Europe region to a leading market share position and overseen industrialization of Applications service delivery.
Anant has authored the world’s first ever book on Remote Infrastructure Management (RIM) called ‘The Blackbook on RIM’and is a founding member of NASSCOM’s, RIM Forum. He is also is a Task Force member of the New Energy Architecture project run by the World Economic Forum.
Picture Courtesy: HCL Tech Web Site