Infosys CEO Vishal Sikka hires SAP executive Jason Wolf, puts him in charge of experience design

BENGALURU: Infosys chief executive Vishal Sikka has poached yet another SAP executive Jason Wolf and put him in charge of “experience design”, marking at least the 14th top-level hire from the German business software maker since he joined in August last year.

Wolf joins Infosys after stints at companies such as US-based IDEO, which became famous for designing the first-ever mouse for Apple’s computers, Microsoft and two separate stints at SAP. Prior to joining Infosys, he was a creative director at the office of the CTO and a part of the “chairman projects” team at SAP Labs.

Wolf’s hiring comes at a time when India’s second largest software exporter under Sikka is betting big on design thinking and attempting to change the mindset of the broader organization by placing a huge emphasis on finding creative and next-gen solutions to business problems faced by large customers such as Bank of America and General Electric.

Under Sikka, a number of Infosys’s 176,000-odd employees have gone through courses on design thinking.

“We don’t think somehow, our education and training does not incline us to think about what the great problems are. We are not trained to look around a room and identify 10 things in the room that can be arranged to look better, or find things that are not right and that we know can be better. So a systematic design thinking is a good method for identifying what the important problems are,” Sikka had told ET in a February interview.

Infosys did not respond immediately to an email seeking comment.

According to Wolf’s LinkedIn profile, the former SAP Labs executive has been mandated to design products and services with a special focus on user experience, among other things, as part of this newly-created role.

“XD is necessary when Innovation is not enough. In this role I will be designing products, processes, services, events, and environments with a focus placed on the quality of the user experience and culturally relevant solutions,” Wolf said on his LinkedIn profile.

Wolf, who will be based in the San Francisco Bay Area, will be reporting to design and research head Sanjay Rajagopalan, who was also hired by Sikka from SAP last year.