Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, an independent director on the board of Infosys Ltd, struck a cautious note while lending her support for the CEO Vishal Sikka, amid the continuously developing story about corporate governance concerns raised by the founders over three executives’ high salaries and severance pay.

Shaw, who is the Chairman and Managing Director of India’s largest biotechnology company Biocon, said in an interview to CNBC TV18 that Infosys founders want Sikka to deliver on his ‘lofty goals’. She told CNBC TV18 that she does not think that Vishal Sikka has an aggressive acquisition strategy.

Infosys founders N R Narayana Murthy, Kris Gopalakrishnan and Nandan Nilekani wrote to the board last month expressing their concerns over corporate governance with the board, including the quantum of salary hike given to the CEO Vishal Sikka and the size of the severance packages given to former CFO Rajiv Bansal and former General Counsel David Kennedy.

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On its part, Infosys board has denied any lapses in governance and has explicitly supported Sikka. “The Board is fully aligned with the strategic direction of Dr Vishal Sikka and is very appreciative of the initiatives taken by him in pursuance of this transformation,” R Seshasayee, the Chairman of the board, said in a company statement yesterday.

Shaw said she also believes that issues raised by the founders are not with regard to governance, but are rather around the “value perceptions”. She said that the concerns have been in the public domain for long, and have been adequately addressed by the board through shareholder approvals.

While the company board is aligned with Sikka’s views, the three founders, who together have just about 13% shareholding in the company, had suggested that former board members like T V Mohandas Pai, V Balakrishnan and Marty Subramanian be brought back as directors in order to foster ‘Infosys values’.

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The founders, in their letter, raised questions on certain decisions taken by the company in the last one year, feeling that the board should have been more proactive in questioning the decisions at their end.

Currently, Infosys board is led by the non-executive Chairman R Seshasayee. The founders, in their letter to the board, had said that the board should have upheld the corporate governance standards set by them. None of the original founders is on the board or in executive management position at the company.