Narayan AmmachchiIT consultancy Cognizant has named former Dell and HP executive Brain Humphries as its new chief executive officer, with the current CEO Francisco D’Souza limiting himself to the role of Vice Chairman on the company’s board of management.
D’Souza, who co-founded the IT firm and has served as CEO since 2007, will however serve as full-time Executive Vice Chairman until June 30, 2019, remaining a non-executive Vice Chairman from then onward.
Humphries is currently the CEO of Vodafone Business, a subsidiary of British telecom giant Vodafone Group, where he is in charge of overseeing the company’s technology development in a wide-ranging areas including internet of things (IoT) and cyber security.
“Our industry is entering a dynamic new growth stage. Brian is a broadly experienced technology executive with a proven track record of driving enterprise-wide transformation through focused execution, often in challenging and highly competitive market segments,” said Michael Patsalos-Fox, Cognizant’s Chairman of the Board in a statement.
At Dell, Humphries held the position of President and Chief Operating Officer of its Infrastructure Solutions Group, based in Boston and Geneva. Previously, he was at Hewlett-Packard as senior Vice President, overseeing the company’s operations in emerging markets.
A Kenyan-born Indian American, D’Souza co-founded Cognizant and under his leadership, the company increased annual revenue over ten times, from US$1.42 billion in 20006 to US$16.1 billion last year. And its headcount grew from a mere 39,000 to 282,000.
Although headquartered in Teaneck, New Jersey, Cognizant is considered an Indian IT services firm, with a large majority of its employees based in the South Asian country.
“While I have enjoyed serving as CEO, I believe this is the right time for me to step aside and for the Company to name a new leader to build on the strong foundations we’ve created and take Cognizant into the future,” reacted D’Souza.
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