Infosys' Shibulal on Changing Role of CEOs

Bangalore: "The real change, which I have started to realize, is the Buck stops at me," said Shibulal, CEO of Infosys while speaking at the SiliconIndia CEO Conclave held in Bangalore on February 24, 2012.

Shibulal took over from Kris Gopalakrishnan as CEO of Infosys on August 21, 2011. Having been in Infosys for 31 years and handled the role of COO for 5 years, the transition to CEO for him was gradual rather than abrupt. "When you gradually transition one cannot really make out sudden changes," says Shibulal.

He said, "We live in a world of contradictions. On one side you have the economic crisis, unemployment, European crisis, uncertainty in the U.S., and lack of growth. On the other side, there are tremendous opportunities. There are many emerging trends and in our case, it could be creating opportunities arising out of emergence of digital consumer, growth in emerging markets, new sustainable technologies, or change in urban demographics. The role of the CEO essentially is to see which of the opportunities to leverage to create growth for your corporation."

"When I speak to CEOs of several global companies, I see a dichotomy. On one end is the lack of confidence or clarity. On the other end is the bunch of opportunities that they are thinking to leverage. This is the world in which most of the CEOs today operate."

"Across the World, be it in developed or developing economies, the ability of Governments to create social wealth and enhance the quality of life is diminishing. The only entities other than Government, which can create social wellbeing, are large corporations. Going forward, Corporates have a much bigger role to play in the social well being. It is not just about profits and growth. They (corporations) are the custodians of most of the social wealth and there is a responsibility to use it for social wellbeing," Shibulal said.

"We get impacted by events in the corporate world more than the events in the government world. Given this context, the most critical role of the CEO is to drive holistic performance. It is not just revenue and profit. It has different dimensions and it is about delivering performance to all stake holders - clients, employees, investors and society."

"While driving performance, CEOs need to focus on building trust with all the stakeholders. We are in an environment where there is crisis of trust. Any conversation about corporations, it is all about lack of transparency, exorbitant compensation for CEOs, ethics of running business, driving profits in mindless pursuit. This needs to be changed. CEOs need to focus on innovation, strategy and execution," he concluded.

Over 200 CEOs of leading businesses houses flocked at the event to listen to the experts.