Infosys resignations continue; senior VP Sanjay Rajagopalan walks out saying he is a 'free man'

Sanjay Rajagopalan stepped down as the senior vice president of Infosys today. He was in charge of the design and research wing of the company for over three years. A close and a former colleague Vishal Sikka, Rajagopalan called himself a 'free man' on his LinkedIn profile, as Infosys shares fell earlier today.

Infosys shares came down from Rs 917.95 to the day's low of Rs 908.60 around 9:30 am, following Rajagopalan's resignation. They, however, recovered sometime later, improving by 0.73 per cent to reach Rs 915.2 around 11:00 am, according to data by Bombay Stock Exchange.

Rajagopalan is the latest addition to the list of senior Infosys functionaries jumping ship, something which began after company's former CEO Vishal Sikka put in his papers last month. It was being speculated that he will leave the company sooner than later. Infosys refused to comment on the resignation.

Vishal Sikka had resigned as the CEO of Infosys after a longstanding spat with company's founders, especially Narayana Murthy, over corporate governance issues and misconduct.

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Rajagopalan was among the executives Sikka brought over to Infosys from SAP SE three years ago to help him enact plans he had for the company. Sikka used to be the chief technical officer and Rajagopalan took care of design and special projects as a senior vice president at SAP SE, a Germany-based software company.

During his time at Infosys, Rajagopalan is credited with bringing design thinking to the company. Design thinking is a creative, user-oriented approach to solve problems. He even helped put together a large-scale design thinking training session for all Infosys employees at Mysuru and other development centres under the company. He worked towards incorporating design thinking in Infosys' culture and to help clients overhaul their businesses.

Earlier this month, Infosys said it would announce the financial results for quarter and half-year, which ended September 30, 2017, on October 24.

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It will be the first time in many years that the iconic Indian software firm will not be among the first ones to announce its Q2 earnings in the first week of September. The company has not given any reason for the delay in the scheduled date of earnings. Infosys had given October 13, 2017 as the tentative date for announcing the financial results for the September quarter in its earnings release for the first quarter.

Meanwhile, the Bengaluru-based IT company posted 3.3 per cent sequential drop in net profit at Rs 3,483 crore during the course of Q1 which ended on June 30, 2017. Infosys had said that its net sales grew by 3.2 per cent sequentially to end at $2,651 million dollars.