TV Mohandas Pai, who on Friday resigned as HR director of IT major Infosys, said company's chief mentor N R Narayana Murthy and the board tried to retain him but he decided to call it quits.
A potential COO or even CEO, Pai's decision to resign came amidst speculations doing rounds that he was a front-runner for the Chief Operating Officer's post.
Pai said Murthy tried to convince him to stay on and asked whether he wanted to be the CEO or the COO. "I said No ... I don't have such aspirations. I spoke to board ... I felt this being the new year (Kannada new year), this would be the right time."
"...We have to decide for ourselves when it is time to go," he said.
Pai said, "It is a sudden announcement, but it is not a sudden decision. I decided that I will want to do this (resign) one year back and spoke to Narayana Murthy nine months back."
"I sent the official mail to Murthy at 10.30 pm last night. Today at 7.45 am it was discussed at the Board Meeting....I told the board I would like to go," 52-year-old Pai said, adding that he was demitting office to "make way for change".
Murthy in a statement said, "Mohan has been an early adopter and key anchor builder of Infosys...We know he is taking the painful decision since he has much bigger projects on the horizon - nation building."
On his future plans Pai said, "I want to spend 30 per cent of my time with corporate world, I will join boards, I have not made my mind which company, but whatever I join should have systemic influence on India. I am not going to work full time."
"30 per cent of my time I want to spend with my wife and children," he added.
He said the IT industry was seeing a change of old guard.
"The IT industry is maturing... it is seeing an exit of a set of people who were pioneers who built this industry."
Murthy himself is retiring in August this year. Another co-founder Nandan Nilekani quit Infosys two years ago to join the government to implement an ambitious project that will give an identification number to each citizen.
Earlier in the month, a mid-sized IT company MindTree's co-founder and former chairman Ashok Soota quit the company to start a new venture.
On his unfinished agendas, Pai said, "My unfinished agenda is making Infosys number one in the world".
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