Satyam's new avatar, new leadership

23rd June 2009
Satyam's new avatar, new leadership

Satyam is dead; long live Mahindra Satyam. The  troubled Hyderabad -based  outsourced IT services player  has been rebranded by Tech Mahindra,  the company which became its new owner in April after  paying Rs 17.56 billion rupees ( $ 351 million) for a  31 percent stake and earmarking another 10 billion rpees for an additional 20- percent buy up.

On Tuesday, Tech Mahindra announced the appointment of a new  CEO for Mahindra Satyam -- C.P. Gurnani  --  while Vineet Nayar's role as  Executive Vice Chairman will now embrace both Tech Mahindra and  Mahindra Satyam.  Gurnani was President of Tech Mahindra's international operations.

Also announced: the appointment of   S. Durgashankar as  Mahindra Satyam CFO.  He has been Tech Mahindra's Vice President  for Mergers and Acquisition and presumably the  person who  helped put together the Satyam acquisition.

The appointments seem to  indicate that Mahindra wants to move on from the interim arrangements that the government had made to lead Satyam during its early days and weeks after the scandal broke in December 2008.

Bangalore June 22