Friday, August 29, 2008

Danford Smith, Virtusa COO and board member, steps down

By Mass High Tech Staff

Virtusa Corp. reports that COO Danford Smith, member of the board of directors, has resigned from the company effective Sept. 30.

Westborough-based Virtusa (Nasdaq: VRTU) didn’t disclose further details relating to the resignation.

The company, founded in 1996, provides IT consulting, technology implementation and application outsourcing services. Smith, who was also a Virtusa president, has been with the company for four years, officials said.

Smith led Virtusa’s global sales, marketing and delivery organizations. Prior to Virtusa, he was a general manager at New Jersey-based Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp., where he held sales, delivery and profit-and-loss responsibilities for the company’s largest business unit, which included insurance, health care, life sciences, communications and media practices, according to the Virtusa website.

During Smith’s six years at Cognizant, the company grew its annual revenue from $25 million to more than $500 million.

Before Cognizant, he was a partner at Virginia-based Computer Science Corp., where he was responsible for technical leadership, account management and profit and loss. Prior to CSC, Smith was a technology leader at North Carolina-based Baker & Taylor Inc. and an instructor at the Chubb Institute of Computer Technology, according to the website.

Last year, Virtusa raised $61.6 million in an initial public offering. During fiscal 2008, the company reported net income of $17.7 million on revenue of $165.2 million.