My role at Infy will be to look after board governance: Kamath

Cometh the hour cometh the man,they say. But in the case of Infosys,in its hour of change,there are two men at the top.

Cometh the hour cometh the man,they say. But in the case of Infosys,in its hour of change,there are two men at the top. Chairman-designate KV Kamath and executive co-chairman Kris Gopalakrishnan are slated to form a potent combination that can take Infosys further forward. In an interview with Darlington Jose Hector and Goutam Das,the two explain the roles they envisage for themselves in the company.

The significant message that emanated from the succession announcement was that the company required the services of two chairmen. Can you please elaborate on how this model will work?

Kamath: Infosys has had the same model with Murthy and Nandan. Sometimes it is appropriate to have a CEO-COO structure; sometimes it is appropriate to have a co-chair; sometimes it is appropriate have the CEO and chair positioned combined,though that is getting a little bit out of fashion. Ultimately,it has to be something that works in the companys context without compromising on the governance aspect. This is a company that has a strong core of professional leaders who have been around for a very long period of time. We see a transition happening now as these professionals reach a point in time when they say that they would step down. So it is necessary that younger professionals are brought up. We need to continue to benefit from this long pipeline of experience that the professionals founders in this case have brought to the table. The board thought it appropriate that somebody like Kris who has done a remarkable job as CEO be there to continue the moulding process. That is best done in an executive co-chair position.

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Can you talk about the division of roles? Some experts tend to see the role of a chairman as that of the chief governance officer.

Kamath: That would be right. That would be my role in Infosys and that is my role in ICICI Bank as well. To make it clearer,my role would be to look after board governance. There is a whole range of other governance issues which gets assumed by CEO or co-chair.

Gopalakrishnan: I will be working a lot with some of our key clients. As we go forward,it is very important for us to create CXO level relationships in our client organisations. We are working with business side of our clients more and more. I will also be involved in developing internal leaders for the future.

KV,how do you think the role of a chairman has evolved in India?

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Kamath: If you go back in time,when India had family run businesses,the chairman was basically everything. He carried the title,but he was also the CEO and much beyond. As new principles of governance came into being in the last 10-12 years,there came greater role clarity. You still had combined positions where chairman had enormous powers but checks and balances started to come in. With the evolution of separation in duties,the checks and balances have become more defined. Now,the board delegates execution and operation responsibility to an executive management. The board then plays role of a governance watchdog,making sure strategic plans are executed properly. This becomes the governance process,broadly.