Premji's son is Wipro's chief strategy officer

Source :TNN, Sep 2, 2010, 08.35am IST
BANGALORE: It's son-rise at the country's third largest tech firm Wipro Technologies. Despite chairman Azim Premji's constant denials that his elder son Rishad is in line for the top job at the company and will eventually succeed him, Rishad Premji, 34, has been quietly and quickly climbing the corporate ladder. Wednesday's announcement that Premji Jr has been appointed as chief strategy officer ( CSO) for IT services elevates him into the senior management echelon at Wipro with immediate effect.


The new profile takes Harvard educated Rishad into Wipro's 32-strong management team, which includes joint CEOs, vertical business units heads, service lines heads, geography heads and function heads.

Prior to this, he was a general manager treasury and investor relations at the company . He joined Wipro in June 2007 as a business manager and spent a couple of years helping the M&A team.

Rishad Premji had a stint with a global consultancy in Europe before joining Wipro. Having graduated from Wesleyan University in the US, Rishad worked briefly with General Electric before getting himself a management degree from Harvard and joining the consulting firm of Bain & Co in London.

K.R. Lakshminarayana (LAN) has been heading strategy and mergers & acquisition initiatives of the company. With the new reshuffle, the portfolio is cut into two: the strategy (IT services) part will he headed by Rishad while Sridhar Srinivasan, currently general manager (M&A ), will be the interim head of M&A. "We are looking for a new leader for M&A , mostly internally," said Saurabh Govil, sr vice president, Wipro Technologies. LAN will move into a new role in Azim Premji Foundation as chief endowment officer, mostly focusing on funds and financials, from January 2011. " The next four months will be a transition period," added Govil.

Rishad has helped the company evolve its financial services practice by leading two acquisitions and also spearheading Wipro's operating margin improvement initiative. Rishad played a significant role in the acquisition and integration of Citi Technology Services. He has championed some of the company's major non-linear initiatives including acquisition of Gallagher Financial Systems and alliance with Cenlar Financial.

His earlier role involved handling investor relations and maintaining dialogue with Wipro's financial investors and key stakeholders , besides managing the company's treasury.

The move is being seen as a signal of eventual succession plans at Wipro. Though he was brought to Wipro as a normal employee, ever since Rishad joined Wipro, there's been speculation about him being groomed to lead Wipro.

Tariq Premji, Rishad's younger brother, continues to work with the Premji Foundation, which is focussed on providing quality education across primary schools.