Roshni Nadar Malhotra on Friday became the first woman to lead a listed Indian IT company — when she assumed charge as the chairperson of HCL Technologies with immediate effect after founder Shiv Nadar expressed his desire to step down as chairman.
HCL Technologies told the stock exchanges in a regulatory filing that its board of directors has appointed non-executive director Roshni Nadar Malhotra as the chairperson of the board and the company with effect from Friday in place of her father Shiv Nadar.
Shiv Nadar will continue to be the managing director of the company with the designation as chief strategy officer.
The company announced a 32 per cent rise in its net profit for the first quarter ended June 30, 2020 at Rs 2,360 crore compared with Rs 1,791 crore in the year-ago period. Its revenues grew 8.6 per cent to Rs 17,841 crore over the year-ago quarter. However, on a sequential basis, revenues were down 4 per cent.
Like Infosys, HCL Technologies revived the practice of giving guidance for the rest of the year.
The company expects revenue to show a sequential growth of 1.5-2.5 per cent in constant currency terms for the next three quarters.
Similarly, operating margins are expected to come in the range of 19.5-20.5 per cent for the current fiscal.
During the quarter, HCL said that it signed 11 deals, led by key industry verticals such as telecommunication, financial services, manufacturing, life sciences and healthcare.
Revenue from the financial services vertical on constant currency basis showed a drop of 1.7 per cent compared with the preceding three months. It was more in the case of manufacturing at 18.8 per cent, while revenues from telecom and media fell 15.5 per cent.
“Organisations and people across geographies are dealing with challenges related to the pandemic. However, this has also pushed businesses to accept the pandemic as a catalyst for change and look at building agility and resilience into every level of their organisation.
“HCL, along with its partners, is helping customers embrace digital transformation and innovation to emerge stronger in this new normal,” said Shiv Nadar, managing director and chief strategy officer, HCL Technologies.
