Cognizant appoints Wipro veteran Jatin Dalal as Chief Financial Officer

Wipro veteran Jatin Dalal has been appointed as the next chief financial officer (CFO) of Cognizant, the company said on Thursday.

Dalal's appointment is expected to be effective December 2023. He will succeed Jan Siegmund, who intends to retire in early 2024. Upon Dalal's assumption of the role of CFO, Siegmund will remain with the Company as a non-executive officer and special advisor to support an orderly transition.

Dalal will report to Ravi Kumar S, Cognizant's Chief Executive Officer, and oversee, among other responsibilities, Cognizant's worldwide financial planning and analysis, accounting and controllership, tax, treasury and internal audit, corporate development, investor relations and enterprise risk management functions.

Dalal, a Wipro veteran of 21 years, and a qualified chartered accountant (CA) resigned from the Bengaluru-based IT firm last week, and his last day at the company is November 30. He was Wipro's CFO for eight years since 2015 and was replaced by Aparna C Iyer, who was appointed as Wipro's CFO from September 22. He also assumed additional responsibilities as President beginning in December 2019. 

Previously, he was CFO of Wipro's Global IT Business from 2011 to 2015 in Bangalore, and prior to that, he served as Wipro's UK Head of Finance for the Europe region and as the Global Finance Head for the company's Energy & Utilities, Health Care, and Manufacturing business units. Dalal also led Wipro Ventures, Wipro's $300 million strategic investment arm focused on investing in early- to mid-stage startups.

"Jatin is a highly experienced technology services CFO with a proven track record of financial and operational success in a complex and quickly evolving industry," said Ravi Kumar S, Chief Executive Officer said in a statement. "We are pleased to welcome Jatin to Cognizant and confident he will help us achieve our goals as we continue to focus on driving revenue growth,” he added.

For Dalal, joining Cognizant would be a step-up as he will move to a larger firm, said a Mint report published on 24 September. Wipro, which was valued at $26 billion as of 22 September, ended 2022-23 with $11.16 billion in revenue. Cognizant, which had a market cap of $35.2 billion on the same day, ended calendar year 2022 with $19.4 billion in revenue. However, Wipro fares better on profitability. Wipro’s operating margin of 16% is higher than Cognizant’s 11.8%, it said.