Cognizant banking delivery head Nachiket Deshpande quits

BENGALURU: Nachiket Deshpande, senior vice-president and global delivery head for banking and financial services in Cognizant, has resigned after nearly two decades with the Nasdaq-listed firm. Deshpande reported to Debashis Chatterjee, EVP and president of global delivery.

Deshpande, who joined Cognizant as an architect in 1999, went on to head the BFS product solutions business and incubated it in emerging markets. He was also the delivery head for the infrastructure services business and played a key role in Cognizant’s $2.7-billion acquisition of Trizetto. An email sent to Cognizant on Deshpande’s exit did not elicit a response.

Cognizant’s BFS vertical, which contributes 36% to its revenue, grew just 2.6% in the September quarter, compared to the year-ago period. CFO Karen McLoughlin said the company has seen nice recovery in North America-based banking clients because of significant shift to digital in those clients. But she said the company continues to see pressure with some of the Europe headquartered clients.

Post the September quarter results, Cognizant CEO Francisco D'Souza said in an email to employees that he spent a week in India, where he discussed the next stage of skilling opportunities for associates, and talked with digital delivery partners about the progress made in implementing the 2020 strategy.

He wrote that he also "toured the digital engineering lab, dedicated an academy building to honour former board member Bob Weissman, took part in the townhall and generally did a lot of listening and learning.”

When asked about succession planning on the investor call, D'Souza said, “At this time there is no change in my responsibility. Succession planning is the responsibility of the board.”