Brian Humphries, the former CEO of Cognizant was “terminated without cause,” the company said in a regulatory filing.
When someone is terminated without cause, it means that while they are being dismissed from their role, the reason has nothing to do with significant workplace misconduct or malfeasance at the workplace and they are entitled to severance payment.
According to Moneycontrol, the Chairman of Cognizant’s Board said that Brian Humphries’s transition was required for the company to progress faster, increase its commercial momentum and accelerate revenue growth.
Last year in the month of August, US-based wealth management and investment banking services firm Wedbush Securities released a report and advised the board of Cognizant to observe the company’s underperformance, and possibly even consider replacing the incumbent boss, Brian Humphries.
Wedbush Securities had said in a report, “There is an inevitable, imminent urgency of addressing these points” as Cognizant’s current “technique of avoiding/not competing” for large deals is “unprecedented” since every IT services firm is competing for multi-year multi-million work from Fortune 500 clients.
Moshe Katri mentioned in the report, “At its current form, Cognizant is probably one of the most under-appreciated platforms in the sector. During the past few years, and under the leadership of Brian Humphries (since April 2019).”
It was widely speculated that Brian Humphries had been fired after the sudden surprise appointment of Ravi Kumar S as CEO, as well as Humphries’ own post on LinkedIn that it “was announced” that he would be stepping down as CEO.
Ravi’s appointment was announced in Oct 2022 as the President of Cognizant Americas and was appointed as CEO, along with Stephen J Rohleder as the Chairman of the Board on January 16, 2023.
Before joining Cognizant, Ravi Kumar S was associated with India’s second-largest IT major Infosys as President, he was responsible for the Infosys Global Services Organisation across all industry segments.
Humphries stayed on in the company till March 15 for the transition.
