Cognizant CEO Brian Humphries Fired: Check List Of 10 CEOs Of IT Giants Who Were Laid Off

According to a regulatory filing (2023 proxy statement) by the Nasdaq-listed company, former Cognizant CEO Brian Humphries was "terminated". Humphries left his position as CEO on January 12 and continued to work as a special advisor until March 15. Despite widespread speculation that Humphries had been let go, the business at the time had not confirmed it. The following 12 CEOs have experienced an acrimonious exit, like Humphries.

Within minutes of taking control over Twitter, Elon Musk fired key Twitter executives. The first executive to leave the company was the CEO Parag Agrawal. Agrawal, who was chosen to be the CEO of Twitter in November 2021.

 

Phaneesh Murthy, president and CEO of the IT company iGate, was fired for "violating" company policy in 2013 by neglecting to disclose a "relationship" with another employee. Murthy was found guilty following an investigation by outside legal counsel. The employee also complained of "sexual harassment," the company's board of directors said in a statement. At Infosys, Murthy had also been accused of the same thing.

 

When outside contractor Jodie Fisher accused HP CEO Mark Hurd of sexual harassment in August 2010, Hurd was asked to resign. HP lost billions of dollars in stock value as a result of Hurd's abrupt departure. Considering that Hurd had successfully led HP's recovery after Carly Fiorina left, the business also had to deal with numerous litigation. However, a later internal HP investigation exonerated Hurd of harassment but found that he had submitted false expense reports.

 

The dual CEOs of Wipro, Girish Paranjpe and Suresh Vaswani, resigned in January 2011, making TK Kurien the new head of the company's IT division. According to reports, the pair quit after the business missed analyst expectations in the third quarter of FY2010–2011.

 

Ankiti Bose, an Indian-origin co-founder, and CEO of the Singapore-based fashion start-up Zilingo was let go in May 2022 after an investigation into allegations of financial irregularities.

 

Carol Bartz, the CEO of Yahoo, was ousted in 2011. Bartz, a former senior executive at Sun Microsystems and Autodesk, joined Yahoo at a time when the search industry was becoming increasingly dominated by Google. But just two and a half years into her position, Bartz's reign came to an abrupt end when, according to an email she sent to Yahoo staff in 2011, she was "fired over the phone by Yahoo's Chairman of the Board."

 

Leo Apotheker had a brief tenure as CEO of computer behemoth Hewlett Packard (HP), beginning in November 2010 and ending in 2011. The HP board chairman claimed that Apotheker wasn't operating at the same level as the rest of the board, lacked operational execution, and had poor communication skills.

 

Stephen Elop joined Nokia from Microsoft. Former Microsoft CEO Ballmer's final significant choice, the acquisition of Nokia's handset division, was never well received by investors. During his tenure, Elop struggled to gain popularity for his proprietary brand of Lumia cellphones, which were only compatible with Windows. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella sent an email to the company's staff stating, "Stephen and I have decided that this is the right time for him to retire from Microsoft."

 

HTC CEO Peter Chou was requested to leave the company after more than ten years in charge.

 

Steve Jobs, the renowned CEO of Apple, was once let go from the business he helped create in 1975.

 

Gianfranco Lanci, CEO of Taiwanese computer manufacturer Acer, resigned in April 2011 as a result of disagreements with the board of directors. Lanci, who has served as Acer's CEO since 2008, is rumoured to be at odds with the board of directors over the corporate direction. According to an official statement from Acer, "Lanci held different views from a majority of the board members on the company's future development and could not reach a consensus after several months of dialogue."

During her roughly eight months as CEO of Reddit, Ellen Pao controversially let go of a well-liked staff member over a holiday weekend, setting off a revolt on Reddit. The CEO of Reddit eventually left as a result of this.