Cognizant Names Former Wipro Finance Chief Jatin Dalal As New CFO

Cognizant Technology Solutions on Thursday named former Wipro chief financial officer Jatin Dalal as its CFO, a week after his resignation from the Indian information technology (IT) major.

Dalal is the second high profile hire by Cognizant in the past twelve months, after it named former Infosys President Ravi Kumar S as its CEO in January.

Dalal will take over the role from current CFO Jan Siegmund in December, who is due to retire in early 2024, the IT services firm said in a statement.

The pace of executive churn has picked up in the Indian tech industry in recent months.

Top Indian IT firm Tata Consultancy Services CEO Rajesh Gopinathan quit in March, while Tech Mahindra named Infosys veteran Mohit Joshi as its CEO and managing director, set to join in December.

Dalal spent over two decades at Wipro, where he joined as a manager at its treasury operations and most recently held the position of president and CFO. Wipro's shares fell about 3 per cent the day after his exit.

Dalal became Wipro's CFO in 2015, and with CEO Thierry Delaporte steered the company through the pandemic as demand for digital services boomed. The company's shares rose 57 per cent and 85 per cent in 2020 and 2021, compared to 55 per cent and 60 per cent growth in India's Nifty IT index in the same period.

"We are pleased to welcome Jatin to Cognizant and confident he will help us achieve our goals as we continue to focus on driving revenue growth," Cognizant CEO Ravi Kumar S said in the statement.

Cognizant projected third-quarter revenue above estimates in August as more businesses turned to the IT services provider to digitise their operations.