Cognizant CEO Brian Humphries announced the appointment of Ramkumar Ramamoorthy as the Chairman and Managing Director of Cognizant India, who will directly report to the company's executive committee. Ram, as he is popularly called, has been with the company for over two decades in various roles in Marketing and Communications, Market Research and Intelligence, Public Affairs, and investor relations. In a message to the employees, Brian wrote, "Through countless interactions with our leaders and teams in India, not to mention two-week long visits there, I've developed a deep appreciation for the jewel that is Cognizant India-the hub of our global delivery, solutioning, and innovation. We are fortunate to have many talented and engaged colleagues in India, more than 200,000 in all, who excel at serving our clients."
Ramamoorthy will be establishing both a Management Committee and an Operating Committee for India In the coming days. The location heads and corporate function leaders will be his dotted-line reports. Brian also wrote, "These committees will help us further strengthen our operations in the country, proactively advance our agenda as we engage with the media and government, drive greater diversity and inclusion throughout our organization, and extend our corporate citizenship efforts and our reputation as an employer of choice as we work to accelerate Cognizant's topline growth."
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In an e-mail response to Business Today, Ramamoorthy said that his top three priorities in the new role will include building a management committee and an operating committee to strengthen the company's operations across 13 cities, driving greater diversity and inclusion and strengthening corporate functions in India to enable the most admired delivery engine in the world by blending efficiency and innovation while driving high levels of client satisfaction. Given the digital disruptions happening across industries, Ramamoorthy will work towards maintaining the company's position as an employer of choice in campuses and the lateral market, and extend the recruitments beyond engineering and management to data science, artificial intelligence (AI), information security, IoT, and human sciences.
Ramamoorthy elaborated that the new committees will have four-point agenda, among others. One, theses committees will help the India operations to fully align with the global purpose, strategy and culture. Two, they will drive India growth strategy, including talent strategy, location strategy, governance, stakeholder management and employee engagement and satisfaction. Three, they will focus on greater diversity and inclusion. Four, they will extend the corporate citizenship efforts and reputation as an employer of choice.
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Ramamoorthy hs taken over Cognizant at a time when India operations have been battling governance lapses. According to news reports, former COO Sridhar Thiruvengadam had agreed to pay a fine of $50000 to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in the US for violating Foreign Corrupt Practices Act where he was one of the officials to sanction bribes to government officials for various clearances for facilities construction in India. Earlier this year, the company had also paid $25 million to SEC to settle the case.