Wipro Ltd has appointed billionaire founder-chairman Azim Premji's oldest son, who is widely seen as heir apparent, as chief strategy officer in a move that could touch off more restructuring at the company.
Harvard-educated 33-year-old Rishad Premji is currently general manager of treasury and investor relations at the third-largest outsourcer of IT services. He will take over from K.R. Lakshminarayana effective Jan. 1, 2011.
Lakshminarayana headed both strategy and M&A, but Rishad will only be in charge of strategy. Sridhar Srinivasan has been made the interim head of M&A.
"He was being groomed to take over at the top. This is just a step toward that," said Harit Shah, IT analyst with Karvy Stock Broking. "He has to earn his way up, it is a complex company."
Like his billionaire father known for living a modest life, Rishad flies economy class and drives his own Maruti SX-4 car. He is married to his childhood sweetheart and has two children.
His father, Azim Premji, took over his father's ailing vegetable oil business in the mid-1960s. He diversified into making hydraulic cylinders in the 1970s and struck out into information technology in 1980.
Wipro now makes consumer care and lighting products besides offering IT services and products.
Based in Bangalore, Wipro counts Citibank, Cisco, Credit Suisse and General Motors among its clients. The company posted a market topping rise in quarterly profit in July and said the deal pipeline in the United States, its biggest market, and Europe looked good.
The younger Premji has a management degree from Harvard Business School and joined Wipro in 2007 in the banking, financial services and insurance business. He had worked with GE Capital and Bain and Co earlier.
In contrast, Azim Premji had to quit Stanford University, his degree in engineering unfinished, to rush to the aid of his family's vegetable oil business following the death of his father in the mid-60s.
Azim Premji is the single largest shareholder in Wipro, owning close to 80 per cent of the company
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