Accenture’s Rekha Menon retires, Ajay Vij, Sandeep Dutta to take over

IT services and consulting firm Accenture, has announced new appointments to its leadership team in India, saying that Rekha M. Menon, senior managing director and chairperson for Accenture in India, will retire as of June 30 after serving for 20 years at the company. Ajay Vij has been appointed to the newly-created role of Country Managing Director and Sandeep Dutta takes over as the lead for its India Market Unit, the company said in a statement.  

During her tenure, Menon held various roles across Accenture’s growth markets and played an active role in growing Accenture’s business, strengthening the company’s presence in its communities and building relationships with key stakeholders including industry, government, and clients. She pioneered the India corporate citizenship strategy and championed the company’s inclusion and diversity agenda. Now, the primary responsibilities of the Chairperson will be undertaken by the new appointees, the company said in a statement.

In his new role, Vij will be responsible for expanding his current responsibilities as corporate services and sustainability lead for India to provide overall leadership and drive coordinated decision-making for key company priorities.  

Dutta, who was India sales lead, will now lead Accenture’s India market unit, serving as the company's India business lead and would be responsible for driving business and operations in the domestic market, focusing on growth, market differentiation, and clients. In an expansion of this role, he will now also be responsible for working with the local business communities and representing Accenture within the local industry and trade bodies. 

“I want to express my deepest gratitude to Rekha for her more than two decades of extraordinary leadership. She helped build a strong foundation for Accenture in India across many aspects of our business and leaves behind an outstanding legacy of accomplishments and impact for our clients, our people and our communities,” said Leonardo Framil, Accenture’s Chief Executive Officer for Growth Markets.

Framil further congratulated the two newly appointed leaders stating that the entire global management committee, including him look forward to working closely with them to create significant value for our clients, people and communities in India and those clients we serve around the world.

Accenture currently has around 738,000 people serving clients in more than 120 countries. In March, the company said that it would cut about 19,000 people or 2.5% of its global workforce in the next 18 months amid the ongoing bleak economic outlook. Mint further reported that it plans to fire at least 7,000 of its 350,000 employees in India.

The Dublin-headquartered tech consultancy has also lowered its revenue and profit projections and now expects annual revenue growth to be in the range of 8-10% compared to 8-11% it expected previously, it said in its second quarter results for the fiscal 2022-23 financial year. The IT services firm, which follows a September-August financial year.

The company, however, added that while the company will “continue to hire, especially to support strategic growth priorities, during the second quarter of fiscal 2023, it initiated actions to streamline our operations and transform our non-billable corporate functions to reduce costs”.