Truck Between the Two Camps

The chairman isn’t exiting. Taking a pacifist line, R. Seshasayee has reached out to NR.

- Ajay Sukumaran

“Don’t look at this as a battle,” was what Infosys Chairman R. Seshasayee repeated several times during a marathon press conference the other day at Mumbai airport’s Taj Santacruz. the situation was indeed unusual: the Board having to clarify on issues that were seemingly smouldering for months until N.R.. Narayana Murthy spoke his mind in a newspaper interview.

Seshasayee, 68, is no stranger to Infosys: he was an independent director for four years before stepping in as the non-executive chairman in June 2015. He has known Murthy for three decades, and in the middle of this fortnight’s flare-up, the Infosys founder told an interviewer that Seshasayee was a man of highest integrity. Yet, the auto industry veteran is leading the Infosys board when it has no founders or those managing operations in the company. The board, except for a couple of members, comprises people fairly new to Infosys.