Phaneesh Murthy fired as iGATE CEO over undisclosed relationship — a decade after his Infosys exit

Phaneesh Murthy was fired as president and CEO of iGATE Corporation on May 20, 2013, following a board-ordered investigation by outside counsel into a relationship he had with a subordinate employee and a claim of sexual harassment, the company said in a statement from Fremont, California.

The subordinate was Araceli Roiz, then 31, iGATE's head of investor relations, who had sent a written complaint to the board. iGATE said its investigation found that Murthy had not violated the firm's harassment policy — but that his failure to disclose the relationship violated iGATE policy and his employment contract, and that was the basis for the termination. "We asked Mr. Murthy to step down," said co-founder and co-chairman Sunil Wadhwani, while crediting Murthy's contributions over the previous decade.

Hours after the sacking, Murthy held a conference call with reporters. He denied the harassment charge as "completely false," admitted to the relationship with Roiz, and maintained he had not violated company policy. (IANS via Hill Post, The Hindu BusinessLine)

It was the second time a misconduct controversy had ended Murthy's tenure at a major IT company. In 2002 he resigned from Infosys — where he had been global head of sales and was sometimes called the "other Murthy" — after his executive secretary Rekha Maximovitch filed a sexual harassment case against him and the company. Infosys settled the matter out of court.

Editor's note, 2026: what followed — Roiz filed a sexual harassment lawsuit in June 2013; iGATE later paid Murthy $4.6 million to settle the defamation and breach-of-contract suit he filed against the company. The original 2013 version of this post contained unverified accusations about Murthy's conduct that have been removed; the facts above are drawn from contemporaneous reporting.