Yesterday the $18bn turnover group confirmed that Ashok Vemuri had been recruited from outside the organisation and would become chief executive of its Business Process Outsourcing business when the company splits into two later this year.
Vemuri, who previously held senior leadership positions at IT services companies IGATE Corporation and Infosys, will join Xerox in July.
Last month Xerox chairman and chief executive Ursula Burns confirmed that she would become chairman of the Document Technology business, which includes Xerox’s print-related operations, post-split.
At Drupa Burns spoke about the challenges involved in deciding upon the new leadership team.
“We want some change, but very rarely do you want a revolution. With both our BPO and Document businesses we have done a lot of work, and will continue to do so, to make sure they’re not broken. They’re just the opposite of that they’re strong,” she stated.
“So we don’t want someone to come in throw the baby out with the bathwater. You want someone who can come in and appreciate the strengths, understand the gaps and amplify the strengths and fill in the gaps.”
Regarding whether the new chief executive of the Document Technology business would come from inside or outwith the business, Burns said: “One of the things we committed to was that we would be pretty expansive in how we looked at the next phase of the company, and to be really expansive we need to open up possibilities everywhere, including leadership.
“I believe we have some of the best, most capable document technology players in the industry, we are literally the leader in this industry so you have got to assume that a large amount of the people in the business are going to probably be around. I don’t know about the actual leader, we definitely have internal candidates, but we want to match them against some other people to make sure.”
On the subject of likely timescales for the appointment, she added: “It’s important to make a decision quickly.”
Jeff Jacobson, currently president of Xerox’s Technology business and who was chief executive of Presstek and before that Kodak Polychrome Graphics, is viewed as a leading internal candidate for the role.
Following the Vemuri announcement, a Xerox spokesman told PrintWeek: “We continue to talk to qualified candidates and will make the announcement on the Document Technology CEO when we are ready in the coming weeks.”
