Growth, healing: New CEO Salil Parekh faces twin tests at Infosys

After well over a decade with Capgemini, Salil Parekh is returning home to head unsettled Indian software services firm Infosys, where he will seek to replicate his success in notching up record growth at the divisions he ran.

Alongside, Parekh has to help the bellwether of India's $154 billion software services sector recover from a nasty public spat between its board and founders that led to the dramatic exit of the previous CEO, Vishal Sikka, in August.

Parekh joins Bengaluru-based Infosys in January from Paris-headquartered Capgemini, where he headed their core application services business in key markets like North America and the United Kingdom, and their cloud services and cloud infrastructure businesses. He also managed Sogeti - a unit of Capgemini focused on digital transformation.

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As the CEO, Parekh will have to achieve growth while being careful not to antagonise Infosys' founders, who own about 12 per cent of the company but command an outsized say in its direction.

His priority will be to assure clients and employees of "business continuity without rocking the boat," Harit Shah of brokerage Reliance Securities wrote in a note to clients after Infosys announced the appointment on Saturday.

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The founders, led by Narayana Murthy, the doyen of India's IT services sector, engaged in a lengthy public feud with Sikka on issues ranging from flights on private jets, to over-spending on a takeover, and on the pricey rent for his US office, to the largesse of payouts given to certain executives following their exits.