Hexaware revenue grew 18% but profit fell 13%. Why is Vivek Jetley replacing its 12-year CEO?

Hexaware Technologies Limited (NSE: HEXT) has named EXL veteran Vivek Jetley as chief executive officer-designate, ending a 12-year CEO tenure under Srikrishna Ramakarthikeyan at a point when the Indian technology-services company is generating strong revenue growth but confronting weaker profit and an industry-wide shift toward artificial intelligence-led delivery. Jetley will assume the chief executive role on October 28, when Ramakarthikeyan steps down as CEO and board member before remaining with Hexaware as a senior adviser to support the transition.

The appointment is notable because Hexaware is not entering a conventional turnaround. Revenue for the June quarter rose approximately 18% year on year to ₹3,845 crore, while the company added 708 employees and finished the quarter with a workforce of 34,506. Net profit, however, fell about 13% to ₹330 crore, while EBIT margin came under year-on-year pressure despite improving sequentially.

That combination gives the succession a sharper strategic context. Hexaware needs to preserve its above-market growth while converting the artificial-intelligence opportunity into stronger margins and durable profitability, rather than allowing AI-led transformation to become another investment cycle that expands revenue without equivalent earnings leverage. Jetley’s background at EXLService Holdings, where he spent almost two decades building analytics, data and artificial-intelligence businesses, appears designed specifically for that challenge.

Why is Hexaware changing CEO after Srikrishna Ramakarthikeyan led the company for 12 years?

Ramakarthikeyan, widely known as Keech, has overseen an unusually long period of development at Hexaware. He remained chief executive through changes in ownership, the company’s earlier delisting and its return to Indian public markets, while helping build the technology-services platform that Carlyle-backed Hexaware operates today. Rather than making an abrupt break, the board has structured the transition so that Ramakarthikeyan remains available as senior adviser after Jetley assumes operational control.

The succession therefore looks more like a change in growth phase than repudiation of the existing strategy. Hexaware’s board said the company has developed deep domain expertise, established client relationships and a growing set of artificial-intelligence capabilities under the outgoing CEO. The task for Jetley is to take that foundation and scale it as generative AI changes how technology services are sold, delivered and priced.

That distinction is important because the Indian IT-services sector is confronting a structural rather than merely cyclical shift. Traditional projects built around large teams and labour-intensive delivery are increasingly being redesigned around automation, artificial intelligence and productivity commitments. Clients are asking vendors to deliver more output with fewer hours, which can create revenue opportunities but can also place pressure on conventional headcount-driven economics.

Jetley has spent much of his career operating at that intersection. At EXL, he most recently led the insurance, healthcare and life-sciences businesses and previously ran EXL Analytics, where he helped build advanced analytics, AI services and enterprise-data-management capabilities. His appointment gives Hexaware a CEO whose experience is unusually concentrated in the precise technology transition now reshaping the industry.

What do Hexaware’s latest financial numbers say about the business Vivek Jetley inherits?

Hexaware’s June-quarter revenue increased to ₹38.45 billion from ₹32.61 billion a year earlier, representing growth of approximately 17.9% in rupee terms. Constant-currency growth was 6.3% year on year and 4.4% sequentially, while the company added another customer generating more than $20 million of annual business. Those numbers suggest client demand remains healthy despite a relatively difficult global environment for discretionary technology spending.

Profitability tells a more complicated story. Net income fell to roughly ₹3.30 billion from ₹3.80 billion a year earlier, a decline of about 13%, while EBIT margin stood at 13.6%. The margin improved 33 basis points sequentially but remained more than one percentage point below the year-earlier level, highlighting the difficulty of translating faster sales into equivalent bottom-line growth.

Cash generation remains supportive. Hexaware ended June with approximately $176 million of cash, restricted cash and mutual-fund investments, while trailing operating cash flow represented about 125% of reported profit. Employee utilisation reached 84.8%, and voluntary IT attrition stood at 11.2%, giving the company a reasonably stable operating base from which the new CEO can adjust its delivery model.

For Jetley, the financial objective is therefore not simply accelerating revenue. Hexaware already demonstrated that it can grow at a healthy pace. The more difficult task is ensuring AI-led delivery increases productivity and margins sufficiently to offset pricing pressure, investment costs and the increasingly demanding economics clients expect from technology-service providers.

Why is artificial intelligence central to Hexaware’s choice of its next CEO?

Hexaware explicitly framed Jetley’s appointment around the next phase of AI-led growth. The company said artificial intelligence is changing how enterprise technology services are delivered, how capabilities are constructed and where new client demand emerges, while Jetley described the current period as a defining moment for the industry.

The shift is already visible in Hexaware’s business. Management has indicated that more than half of company revenue is influenced by artificial intelligence in some form, reflecting the spread of AI across application modernisation, cloud transformation, analytics, software engineering and business-process services. That does not mean half of revenue comes from standalone generative-AI projects, but it shows how deeply the technology is becoming embedded in mainstream service delivery.

The commercial opportunity is substantial because clients are spending to modernise systems and integrate AI into workflows. At the same time, the technology threatens the traditional relationship between revenue and employee numbers. If AI allows fewer engineers to complete the same amount of work, vendors need new pricing structures and higher-value services to ensure productivity improvements do not simply reduce billable effort.

That is why Jetley’s analytics and AI history matters more than a generic CEO résumé. Hexaware is effectively betting that an executive who previously built data-led service businesses can help move the company toward a model where AI creates new revenue pools rather than merely automating existing work.

Does Hexaware’s 34,506-person workforce create another challenge for the new CEO?

Hexaware finished the second quarter with 34,506 employees after adding 708 people during the quarter. That continued hiring differentiates the company from many technology groups currently reducing workforce numbers, but it also increases the importance of workforce productivity as AI changes project staffing requirements.

The company cannot simply assume that historic employee-growth patterns will continue indefinitely. Technology-services companies have traditionally expanded capacity by hiring large graduate and experienced workforces ahead of demand, but AI-assisted software development, testing and support can reduce the number of people required for particular activities. The new operating challenge is deciding which capabilities deserve additional hiring and which functions can deliver more output through automation.

Jetley will therefore inherit both a growth opportunity and an organisational-design question. Hexaware needs specialists in data engineering, AI, cloud and domain consulting, while some traditional delivery roles may become less labour intensive. Managing that transition without damaging employee morale or client delivery could become one of the most consequential workforce issues of his tenure.

Hexaware is not announcing layoffs, but appointing an AI-focused CEO to a 34,500-person technology-services business inevitably raises questions about how the employee model evolves as artificial intelligence becomes embedded across more than half of revenue.

What does Hexaware’s share performance say about investor expectations ahead of the CEO transition?

Hexaware shares closed September 2 at ₹543.60, down 1.36% for the session. The stock was approximately 29% lower for 2026 at that point, despite the company continuing to report double-digit rupee revenue growth and maintain a substantial client base.

That weakness suggests investors want more than growth. Profit compression and uncertainty surrounding the economics of AI-led IT services have made margin quality and earnings conversion increasingly important, while broader pressure on Indian technology valuations has also weighed on sentiment.

The CEO appointment gives Hexaware a clear strategic message but does not immediately resolve those concerns. Jetley will need to demonstrate that AI-led services can improve competitive positioning while restoring stronger profitability, and he must do so after succeeding an executive who had been associated with the company for an unusually long period.

Hexaware’s succession therefore arrives at a genuine inflection point. Revenue is expanding, the workforce is still growing and AI is creating new demand, but profit has moved in the opposite direction. Jetley’s mandate is not merely to make Hexaware more artificial-intelligence focused. It is to prove that becoming more AI-led also makes the business financially better.