LTIMindtree appoints Venu Lambu as CEO-designate for 5 years till 2030

LTIMindtree Ltd appointed former Randstad Digital chief executive as its CEO-designate on Friday to eventually replace Debashis Chatterjee, who has been leading the software services company since its formation three years ago.

The country’s sixth-largest information technology (IT) services company announced Venugopal Lambu as its CEO-designate on Friday, as part of its filing to the stock exchanges. While LTIMindtree has not specified Lambu’s date of officially taking over as CEO, Lambu was chosen as CEO for five years, with his tenure coming to end in January 2030.

Additionally, the former Randstad Digital executive is also inducted into the company’s board of directors and will be based out of London.

Lambu’s return to LTIMindtree-he was president at the company earlier – follows the exit of the company’s global markets lead, Sudhir Chaturvedi, four days ago. Chaturvedi was one of the frontrunners to take over the company’s corner office. 

Mint first reported on 20 January the likelihood of Lambu taking over as LTIMindtree CEO. Lambu’s appointment as CEO designate puts Nachiket Deshpande, the chief operating officer of LTIMindtree, out of the race.

Previous experience

For Lambu, this will not be his first stint in the Mumbai-based company, which ended last year with $4.29 billion in revenue. Lambu worked in Mindtree Ltd in 2020 as its president and executive director, and then with LTIMindtree until January 2023, before taking over as chief executive of Randstad Digital, which is a Netherlands-based digital marketing company, two years ago.

LTIMindtree was formed after the construction-to-financial services conglomerate L&T Group made a hostile bid for Mindtree in 2019. L&T merged its IT services arm, L&T Infotech, with Mindtree, effective November 2022.

Lambu will take on the mantle from Chatterjee, under whose watch the company has reported a compounded quarterly growth rate of 1.06% between December 2022 and December 2024.

Mint could not independently ascertain if Chatterjee would leave the company’s board after his tenure ends later this year. An email sent to LTIMindtree on Friday remained unanswered till press time.

LTIMindtree ended the three months through December 2024 with $1.14 billion in revenue, up 1.1% sequentially, whereas India’s fifth-largest IT company Tech Mahindra’s revenue declined 1.4% to $1.57 billion.

“Over the coming months, Venu Lambu will work closely with Debashis Chatterjee, CEO & MD, LTIMindtree, to ensure a smooth and seamless transition. This period will allow him to gain deeper insights into the current operations, yearly budget and strategic plans,” the company said in a press release.

Lambu and current LTIMindtree chief executive Chatterjee go back a long time.

Both Lambu and Chatterjee worked in Nasdaq-listed Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp between 2012 and 2019, before reuniting in Mindtree a year later.

At least one analyst said that the exodus at the company’s top is likely to continue.

“A lot of the executives who left when LTIMindtree was formed in 2022 out of the merger were Mindtree and Cognizant executives, as they thought of this as more of a takeover by LTI than as a merger. That can reverse now,” said a Mumbai-based analyst at a domestic brokerage on condition of anonymity.

A key challenge for the management even before the merger was to retain leaders. At least nine top executives ranked senior vice-president and above left the company since the company’s merger was announced in May 2022.

Notable departures included Paresh Vankar, former chief marketing officer, who left in October 2023; Dinesh Bajaj, former senior vice-president and chief business officer, who left in September 2023; Suresh Bethavandu, who quit as chief people officer of LTIMindtree in March 2023; Vinit Teredesai, who was LTIMindtree CFO until April last year, joined Persistent Systems as its CFO.

“Lambu is a more sales-oriented guy compared with DC (Debashis Chatterjee), so we can expect more client conversations that way,” added the Mumbai-based analyst.