BPO major Genpact today named NV 'Tiger' Tyagarajan as its President and Chief Executive Officer, replacing Pramod Bhasin who has decided to step down as CEO and member of the Board.

Tyagarajan, who is currently the Chief Operating Officer (COO), will join the board effective June 17.

"I'm delighted to be able to hand over the reins of the company to my long term business partner Tiger. I'm confident that he is the right person to take Genpact forward in its next stage of growth," Bhasin said in a conference call.

However, after Tyagarajan takes over as CEO, the COO position will remain vacant.

On his plans, Bhasin said, "I will devote 20-30 per cent of my time to Genpact, helping Tiger particularly in the areas of acquisition integration, organisation development and growth in new geographies, I now look forward to other pursuits."

He added, "I don't have anything planned but it can be in skills development, education or something with the government."

Last month, Genpact bought smaller rival Headstrong Corp for USD 550 million in cash as it seeks to expand its service offerings.

The NYSE-listed Genpact was launched in 1997 as the India-based BPO arm of GE Capital, General Electric Co's financial services business. GE spun off Genpact in 2005, but remains its largest client. Tyagarajan had then served as the CEO from 1999 to 2002.

When Genpact became an independent company, Tyagarajan rejoined Genpact from GE Capital US as Executive Vice President (Sales and Business Development) from 2005 to 2009.

Thereafter, he took on the role of Genpact COO.

Tyagarajan has also worked with Unilever Group and Citibank in India.

This is one of the big changes in the top deck of IT-BPO firms in the recent months.

While Wipro roped in T K Kurien as the CEO of its IT business, showing the door to joint CEOs Suresh Vaswani and Girish Paranjpe, Infosys' HR Head Mohandas Pai quit after a 17-year stint with the company.

Infosys has also named KV Kamath as its new Chairman, while Kris Gopalakrishnan will take over as the co-Chairman.

Bhasin, 59, has been associated with Genpact for over 14 years.