Former Wipro top exec Sangita Singh may join Infosys

Sangita Singh, Wipro’s former chief executive for healthcare and life sciences, is likely to join Infosys as executive vice-president (EVP) and head its nearly $800-million healthcare and life sciences portfolio.
Singh, who left Wipro last December after a stellar career of 23 years, is expected to be based in one of the key customer markets – either the US or Europe – and report to Mohit Joshi, president and head of financial services in Infosys. The healthcare vertical vacancy was created by the exit of executive VP Manish Tandon, who joined IT services company CSS Corp as CEO recently. Infosys has also brought in Sanat Rao to head Finacle, who was the formerly the head of sales in Finacle some years ago.
An email sent to Infosys and calls and text messages to Singh remained unanswered till the time of going to press.
Infosys CEO Vishal Sikka has been making a number of top level changes ever since the company’s relatively disappointing performance in the last quarter. Singh, who is likely to join Infosys in December – some sources said she has a one-year non-compete clause with Wipro – had in her previous role engaged with top clients in the healthcare payer, provider, medical devices and life sciences spaces. She had direct oversight of some of Wipro’s top accounts such as Johnson & Johnson, Novartis, Astra Zeneca and Takeda. Some two years ago, under Singh’s leadership, Wipro signed a $400-million deal with Japan’s pharma major Takeda to provide IT infrastructure services for its global operations.
Singh is taking up the role at Infosys at a time when the healthcare industry is going through challenging times. Clients are slowing down on discretionary spends – newer investments that may lead to fresh revenue streams or more efficient ways of doing things – and are focused for now on just keeping the existing IT operations going.
There are big concerns around pending regulatory approvals in big-ticket M&As including those related to Anthem and Cigna, and Aetna and Humana. The US justice department is seeking to block these mergers. These issues are resulting in longer decision-making on outsourcing budgets. Indian IT companies have had to face the brunt of the collapse in the proposed merger of Pfizer and Allergan. This shut the tap on large IT outsourcing opportunities. Cognizant, which has a large exposure to the healthcare sector, recently attributed a downward revision in its revenue guidance for the year to concerns in this sector.
Infosys has increasingly been infusing outside talent into its top leadership. “Hiring proven and experienced talent from the same industry brings in perspectives and experiences that ensures business results come in faster and with less risk,” said Nitin Sethi, partner and chief commercial officer at HR consultancy firm Aon Hewitt.