Capgemini top executive Sujit Sircar quits

Sujit Sircar, COO of North America application services at Capgemini, has quit the firm after a long innings that included the tenure at Igate, the IT services company that was acquired by the French major for $4 billion in 2015.

Sircar, who was Igate’s chief financial officer for more than a decade, took on the COO responsibility last year. Sources said he is exploring an opportunity with NYSE-listed business process services firm Conduent, which is now headed by his former boss at Igate, Ashok Vemuri.

Vemuri, who was a top exec at Infosys before moving to Igate, took charge as CEO of Conduent in June last year. He has since attracted others at Capgemini/Igate, including Jeffrey Friedel, who was general counsel at Igate and is now chief people officer at Conduent, and Srikanth Iyengar, who was Capgemini’s group sales officer and is now group chief executive for Europe at Conduent.

When TOI contacted Capgemini on Sircar exiting, the company said it doesn’t comment on market speculation. Robert Corbishley, Conduent’s European PR manager, also declined to comment on whether Sircar is joining the firm, saying the company does not comment on rumour or speculation.

Conduent was spun off from Xerox and has capabilities in transaction processing, automation, and analytics. Jimit Arora, who leads Everest Group’s IT services research practice, said he’s seeing aggressive hiring at Conduent across levels. Phil Fersht, CEO of US-based HfS Research, thinks the rapid leadership changes at Capgemini is leaving the company in an uncertain state.

Meanwhile, a clutch of erstwhile senior Igate executives who are now part of Capgemini, including the head of GE business unit Lalit Khandelwal and executive vice president Nagasamy Pichai, are eligible for performance stock units that will vest on July 1. In 2015, Capgemini exchanged Igate performance share awards held by beneficiaries for Capgemini performance units with a four-year vesting schedule beginning July 1, 2016. The vesting is subject to internal performance conditions.

Capgemini’s annual report shows that the internal performance condition was satisfied only to the extent of 54% at the first vesting date of July 1, 2016. Hence, only 15,400 units were vested, while the remaining 13,118 units were forfeited. The performance criteria for the second tranche of vesting that will take place this year is still not available in the public domain. When TOI asked Capgemini about the number of executives whose performance units will vest, the company declined to comment.