Why Cognizant dumped most of its old board

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Editor's note: Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp. seems to have taken Marie Kondo’s “discard and declutter” message to heart. In a clean-up move reminiscent of what the Japanese organizing guru recommends on her hit Netflix show, the Teaneck, New Jersey-based IT services company has gone about seeing off a bunch of senior-level executives in the last 18 months. At the same time, Cognizant has also inducted four new members into its 11-member board, even as CEO Brian Humphries struggles to put the Nasdaq-listed company back on the high-growth track.  Boards rarely go through such a massive overhaul—a third of board members have changed under Humphries’s watch and two-thirds of those who comprised the 12-memberboard in 2017 are no longer with the company—except when there is a proxy fight, a merger or when a number of independent directors retire. Why then is Cognizant seeing a rash of exits of the old guard from its board and induction of new faces? Signs of trouble The unusual shakeout of the Cognizant board underscores the depths of the company’s problems, say multiple former company executives and analysts …