Of the total movements, 27 per cent were in the CEO/MD category. Twitter India, Truecaller, McAfee India, GoDaddy, InMobi and VMW are major companies that saw such movements with the onboarding of MD and CEO level executives
C-suite movement is a good indicator of the sectoral and industrial trends. There were over 300 high profile CXO level movements tracked in 2019. Of these, the top three job roles that saw maximum churn were of a CEO, CMO and the CHRO, finds talent solutions firm Xpheno.
Of the total movements, 27 per cent were in the CEO/MD category. Twitter India, Truecaller, McAfee India, GoDaddy, InMobi and VMW are major companies that saw such movements with the onboarding of MD and CEO level executives.
“In this year of sluggish demand, there has been a lot of turmoil in the companies; the pressure is high to achieve results faster. They also relook at their processes or restructure their businesses that leads to churn at CEO levels,” says Xpheno co-founder Kamal Karanth.
This year also saw an increase in demand for senior sales and marketing professions. Technology companies had new office bearers with 23 per cent movements happening in the S&M function.
Consumer tech companies such as Olx, Makemytrip, Flipkart and Ola had onboarded their CMOs or Marketing Heads this year.
“The rise in movement of marketing heads in the later part of the year is a result of two trends. One, sluggish demand or tepid marketing results, which organisations address by replacing existing marketing people. Second, firms are augmenting their marketing functions and adding new marketing positions that were not there earlier,” says Karanth.
Onboarding of CHROs and CPOs was predominantly in tech services companies such as GE, SAP, Microland, Capgemini and L&T Infotech.
“Demand for CHROs increases as companies grow in their size. This year, a number of companies in the fintech and GIC space scaled up very fast and needed senior people to manage their workforce that has led to rise in CHRO movement, which was not this substantial before,” he says. “Another reason is 30 new MNCs entered India this year.”
Even in the new and existing GIC, firms are hiring people in leadership positions with strong technology background rather than those having services mindset. “The work these firms are doing in India is not just that of maintenance but also of value addition. So, the kind of people they are recruiting has changed,” says Karanth.
Finance leadership remained comparatively stable during this period with CFO movements making up for only 4 per cent of the movements.
Xpheno looked at top 100 companies across five consumer sectors – FMCG and retail, e-commerce, pharmaceuticals, technology (IT services and IT product firms), and start-ups
