Indian IT’s CEOs prefer working where grass is greenest

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Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. India's technology services companies are increasingly stationing chief executives close to their biggest customers in the US and Europe, even as the companies host the bulk of their workforce back home. Chief executives of eight out of 10 Indian IT services companies now work from cities in the US and Europe, a sharp change from 2019 when only five did so, a Mint review found.

In comparison, two-thirds of their workers are based in India. Last week, LTIMindtree Ltd announced that CEO-designate Venu Lambu would work out of London, as against current CEO Debashis Chatterjee who works from Bengaluru. This makes Lambu the eighth chief executive to be working outside of India.

Mint could not independently ascertain when Lambu would officially take over from Chatterjee. Europe accounted for 14.9%, or $639 million of LTIMindtree's $4.29 billion revenue in FY24. CEOs of most IT companies in the last quarter century operated from India since the majority of their workers were in the country.

Now, even though India accounts for the bulk of the workforce, many companies believe that having senior management in key markets helps them get better growth. At least one analyst subscribed to this view. “North America is where the money is.

If you want to be closer to the customer, you have to embed yourselves in their social lives, or you put a great executive leadership team to operate at that level," said R “Ray" Wang, chief executive of Constellation Research. On average, business from the Americas fetches IT services companies 30-50% of their revenue, while Europe contributes about a third at most. However, a second analyst said that location is a choice of the executive chosen for the top job.