Do not intend to appoint COO for now: TCS’ chief

IT services major Tata Consultancy Services kicked off the financial earnings result announcement on Friday. This conference also marks the last quarterly result declaration conference of which N. Ganapathy Subramaniam (aka NGS) will be a part as TCS’ chief operating officer. 

Responding to a reporter’s question about who will take over the role after NGS’ retirement due in May, TCS’ chief K Krithivasan said that the company doesn’t plan on hiring a COO after NGS for the time being. “He has been doing many things and no one individual can replace him. Our current thinking is we are distributing the work he has been doing among the leadership team. But we don’t intend to appoint a COO for now,” said Krithivasan. 

NGS, a TCS veteran of four decades, has been the COO for the last seven years. He was appointed in 2017 to the post and reappointed in 2021. Before taking the role of COO, NGS was the executive vice president and was responsible for TCS BaNCS, which is the company’s core banking software suite, and emerging businesses. He is an alumna of the University of Madras. 

To be sure, NGS is Tata Sons’ chairman N Chandrasekaran’s elder brother. Apart from TCS’ COO, NGS holds positions such as additional director and chairman of Tata Elxsi Limited since November 2014 and the additional director (non-independent; non-executive) of Tata Communications Limited since December 2021.  

TCS reported a 9.14% year-on-year (YoY) increase in consolidated net profit at Rs 12,434 crore for the March quarter, compared to Rs 11,392 crore in the same quarter last year. The consolidated sales for the quarter grew 3.5% YoY to Rs 61,237 crore from Rs 59,162 crore in the same quarter last year.