Cognizant's Head of Industries & Consulting Prasad Chintamaneni resigns

24 May 2019 Consultancy.in

Global IT services and consulting firm Cognizant has seen its fourth executive resignation this month, with the President of the firm’s global Industries & Consulting vertical Prasad Chintamaneni leaving the firm. He was recently tasked with provisionally managing the Banking & Financial Services vertical as well.

Chintamaneni has been with Cognizant for the major part of his professional career, having joined the firm in 1999 from investment management firm Merrill Lynch. During half a decade at Merrill Lynch, he accumulated a wealth of experience in the financial services sector, which has been valuable during his spell at Cognizant.

During the initial stages of his time at Cognizant, Chintamaneni led the US Eastern Region practice for the firm’s Banking & Financial Services (BFS) Division, a role he vacated in 2006, when he was promoted to BFS Head for all of North America. Five years later, he was named the global President of BFS.

Since 2016, Chintamaneni has been President at the firm’s Global Industries & Consulting division, where his focus has been on aiding global clients through the wave of digitalisation. Now, Chintamaneni is the fourth Cognizant veteran to depart in the last month, indicating major changes at the firm.

Prasad Chintamaneni resigns as Cognizant's Global President of Industries & Consulting

Others who have parted ways with Cognizant include Executive Vice President of Global Delivery Debashish Chatterjee, who resigned after more than two decades at the firm, as well as Gajen Kandiah, the former Digital Business Head at Cognizant who spent 16 years at the firm.

Experts and market-watchers have indicated that these comprehensive changes are not necessarily surprising, particularly since the firm appointed a new CEO in February this year. Brian Humphries, who has now taken up the CEO role, appears to have a clear vision of how the firm must be structured.

“Indications are that the new CEO is making some changes to suit his vision and strategy for the company. It is not new for senior people to exit right after a change at the CEO level. I am expecting a few more such high profile exits and new people being brought in over the next few months,” commented Hansa Iyengar, Analyst at Ovum Research.

CEO at market research firm Everest Group Peter Bendor-Samuel added, “With a new Chairman of the board and CEO, Cognizant is changing out its senior management team as it puts distance from the ill-advised Elliot influenced commitments of the last two years. Furthermore, the senior Cognizant team has had a great run and accumulated significant wealth in stock which can best be sold while they are no longer insiders.”