The Hindu Business Line : Rash of resignations in consulting world

THE consulting world has been witness to significant upheaval during the recent times, with scores of senior consultants quitting their jobs over the last couple of months.

The latest controversy has come about with Ernst and Young, Global announcing the resignations of E&Y India Chairman, Mr Jairaj Purandare, and head of indirect tax practice, Mr Rajeev Dimri, over a dispute about the handling of Arthur Andersen's pre-merger cash surpluses.

The fact that mergers in the consulting world are not a very advisable option is borne out of the fact that E&Y India is left with just one of the 11 Andersen Worldwide partners, who joined the firm as a part of the merger in June 2002.

E&Y is not the only one to be affected. KPMG, which merged with Andersen Business Consulting in March last year, now has only a handful of the partners, who had joined KPMG.

While the spate of resignations among the `legacy Andersen' partners can be attributed to merger pangs, there have been other high-profile exits during the last few months.

In February this year, AT Kearney's India Chairman, Mr C. Srinivasan, and Vice-President, Mr Devinder Chawla, put in their papers. Also, a team of senior consultants led by Mr Amrit Pandurangi, head of KPMG's infrastructure and government consulting group, had quit the firm to join PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) en masse.

Mr Ashwin Parekh, former head of KPMG consulting had earlier left to join Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu consulting.

Before Mr Punandare and Mr Dimri, five E&Y senior partners resigned over the last few months. While former E&Y India CEO, Mr Bobby Parikh, resigned earlier following the appointment of Mr Rajiv Memani for the top job, Mr Ameet Parikh, Mr Nitin Atrole, Mr Suresh Subramaniam and Mr Richard Rekhi are reported to have resigned over the unresolved Andersen fund issue. Mr Farokh Balsara is the only ex-Andersen partner left with E&Y India.

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