Top CEOs With Controversial Exits

Listed below are 7 CEOs whose exits spark controversy.

1. Binny Bansal

The Group CEO of Flipkart had to resign after Walmart, the parent company carries out an investigation over allegations of ‘serious personal misconduct’. Bansal’s resignation from his position was in effect immediately. After Walmart surprise announcement, Bansal sent an email in which he denied the allegations. The company then confirmed that they have appointed Flipkart CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy as Flipkart’s Group CEO.

2. Chanda Kochhar

Chanda Kochhar, the managing director and CEO of ICICI Bank was ordered to quit her position in October 2018. She was accused of conflict of interest and favoring loans. She was charged with conflict of interest relating to Videocon group loans and nepotism. After a new investigation was carried out in May 2018, the Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas law firm took back its 2016 report proving her innocence. The emergence of Kochhar’s wrongdoings on the media leads to a multi-agency investigation against her. This includes the Videocon Group’s Rs 3,250 loan in 2012 as well as her family and husband’s involvement in all the accusations. On October 4, the bank released an announcement on her resignation which was in effect immediately.

3. Brian Krzanich

In June 2018, Intel’s CEO Brian Krzanich resigned from his position. He was accused of violating the non-fraternization policy among employees as he was caught in a relationship with an Intel's employee. Intel stated that his resignation was in effect immediately as the company wanted to demonstrate the importance of Intel’s code of conduct and values. Krzanich had been Intel’s CEO since May 2013.

4. Jan Koum

The disagreement in data privacy occurred in 2018 between WhatsApp and its parent company, Facebook has led to WhatsApp’s co-founder and CEO Jan Koum’s resigning from his position. Koum disagreed with Facebook’s method of approaching encryption and data privacy. In 2017, to be able to gain access to Whatsapp users’ mobile phone numbers, Facebook had forced Whatsapp to modify its terms of use, which received Koum's criticism.

5. Travis Kalanick

Uber Technologies Inc former CEO, Travis Kalanick sent his letter of resignation in June 2017 after being pressured by investors. The group of investors consists of the venture capital firm Benchmark, one of Uber’s biggest shareholders. After Uber’s scandals relating to discrimination and sexual harassment broke out, a request on leadership change was made. This all began after one of Uber’s former engineers talked publicly about sexual harassment in the company’s work culture. That was just the beginning for Uber as the company was also grappled with Waymo’s lawsuit and a federal investigation on the company’s software tool.

6. Vishal Sikka

After three years working at the company, Infosys’ former CEO quit his position in August 2017. His resignation was a result of an argument relating to governance issues between the company board and the founder-shareholders. Promoters started expressing their concerns over Infosys’ decline in governance and values. Decisions made by the company were put under investigation. Two whistleblowers have voiced their complaints to Indian market regulator, SEBI about possible wrongdoing in Infosys’s acquisition of Panaya with the value of $200 million.

7. Shashi Arora

After 12 years working at the Bharti-Airtel group, in December 2017, Shashi Arora resigned from his position as its Payments Bank MD and CEO. He resigned after the UIDAI suspended the firm’s eKYC license. He had charges of opening payments bank accounts without informing subscribers by making use of Aadhaar-eKYC based SIM verification process.