On December 29, 1945, Mohamed Hashem Premji, father of Azim Premji, started Western India Products Ltd at Amalner in Maharashtra for manufacturing vegetable and refined oils. After his father's death in 1966, Premji dropped out of Stanford University and took over the company reins. He was only 21 then.
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Since he took over, Premji diversified the business from a vegetable oil company to a conglomerate of Information Technology, where Wipro forayed into in 1982, and unlisted entity Wipro Enterprises that include consumer care and lighting, infrastructure engineering firms and GE Healthcare.
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Premji stepped down from his role as executive chairman of Wipro on July 31, 2019, after leading the firm for 53 years to devote more time to his philanthropic activities. His elder son Rishad Premji, who was the then chief strategy officer at Wipro, took over as the executive chairman.
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As much as he is known for his frugality, he is known for his compassion and philanthropy. According to EdelGive Hurun India Philanthropy List 2020, Premji has donated Rs 7904 crore, only followed by HCL co-founder Shiv Nadar who has donated Rs 795 crore. Azim Premji Endowment Fund owns 13.6 percent of the promoter holding in Wipro and has the right to receive money earned from promoter shares, the report said. Azim Premji Endowment Fund is an entity set up by Premji to carry out his philanthropic activities. Atul Nishar, founder, Hexaware Technologies, said in an interaction with Moneycontrol that Premji is huge inspiration for the way he built Wipro into a mega corporation. “Major part of the wealth is being donated. There is heart and compassion for others. I think in business it is important to create value for everyone. At the same time there should be an approach of kindness, compassion.” (Image: Azim Premji Foundation)
PremjiInvest, an investment firm, was started by Premji in 2006. According to an ET report, PremjiInvest manages $3 billion of assets, primarily in public markets. Its investments include Icertis, a SaaS unicorn and SBI General Insurance, according to market intelligence platform CB Insights. TK Kurien, former Wipro CEO, is the CEO and managing director at Premji Invest. (Image: Forbes India)
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Premji’s leadership style and ethics have inspired many leaders who want to emulate him. They include Mindtree founders Krishnakumar Natarajan, Rostow Ravanan and Subroto Bagchi, and Suresh Vasawani, former CEO of Wipro, who went on to hold key positions in Dell and IBM before starting his own venture capital and private equity fund. It is hard not to be influenced by Premji's ways, recalled Natarajan, Chairman, Mindtree, during an earlier interaction with Moneycontrol. "He was a great role model," he said.
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The Story of Wipro, published by Westland Publications and soon to be released, will trace the 75-year journey of the IT major from vegetable oil manufacturing to diversified business. Rishad Premji, Chairman, in a tweet, said that the story of Wipro is also the story of Azim Premji since he was at the helm for 53 of the 75 years.
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But, the company's growth over the past years has not impressed the analysts. After growing at 19 percent and 13.4 percent in FY11 and FY12 at $5.2 billion and $5.9 billion respectively, the growth began to slump to single digit from FY13, when the gap between Wipro and its peers began to widen. Both Infosys and HCL Tech overtook Wipro in early 2000s and FY2019 to become the second and third largest IT service providers respectively. The constant revolving door at Wipro was cited as one of the key reasons for the poor performance. The company had four CEO in 10 years compared to say HCL Tech, which had three CEOs in the same period.
Now a lot is riding on its new CEO Thierry Delaporte to drive growth for the firm. In a recent analyst call, Chairman Rishad Premji said that Delaporte is the right leader to take Wipro on the growth path. Under Delaporte, the company has closed one of its largest deals with the German firm Metro. The estimated value for the first five years is $700 million, with the intention to extend up to additional four years. That has the potential to take the value of the deal to $1 billion.
![Premji’s leadership style and ethics have inspired many leaders who want to emulate him. They include Mindtree founders Krishnakumar Natarajan, Rostow Ravanan and Subroto Bagchi, and Suresh Vasawani, former CEO of Wipro, who went on to hold key positions in Dell and IBM before starting his own venture capital and private equity fund. It is hard not to be influenced by Premji's ways, recalled Natarajan, Chairman, Mindtree, during an earlier interaction with Moneycontrol. "He was a great role model," he said.](https://images.moneycontrol.com/static-mcnews/2019/03/mindtree-1.jpg "Premji’s leadership style and ethics have inspired many leaders who want to emulate him. They include Mindtree founders Krishnakumar Natarajan, Rostow Ravanan and Subroto Bagchi, and Suresh Vasawani, former CEO of Wipro, who went on to hold key positions in Dell and IBM before starting his own venture capital and private equity fund. It is hard not to be influenced by Premji's ways, recalled Natarajan, Chairman, Mindtree, during an earlier interaction with Moneycontrol. "He was a great role model," he said.")
