Tag: Rishad Premji

Wipro extends tenures of Rishad and Azim Premji for 5 years

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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IT services company Wipro Ltd on Friday (April 19) said the board of directors has reappointed Rishad Premji and Azim Premji for a tenure of five years.

Wipro announced the “re-appointment of Mr. Rishad A. Premji as Whole-Time Director designated as Executive Chairman for a period of 5 years with effect from July 31, 2024, to July 30, 2029,” as per a stock exchange filing.

Rishad joined Wipro in 2007 and worked in several roles before becoming executive chairman in 2019. He started as a general manager in Wipro’s banking and financial services business, went on to head investor relations, and then led Wipro’s strategy and M&A function.

Also Read: Wipro Q4 Results: June quarter revenue may decline; CEO says macro environment uncertain

As Wipro’s chief strategy officer, Rishad conceptualised Wipro Ventures, a $250-million fund, to invest in startups developing technologies and solutions that complement Wipro’s businesses with next-generation services and products. He was also responsible for investor and government relations for the company.

Rishad is on the boards of Wipro Enterprises Ltd (a leading player in FMCG and infrastructure engineering), Wipro-GE (a joint healthcare venture between Wipro and General Electric) and the Azim Premji Foundation (one of the largest not-for-profit initiatives in India).

Wipro also said it has reappointed “Azim H. Premji as Non-Executive, NonIndependent Director for a period of 5 years with effect from July 31, 2024 to July 30, 2029.”

Azim Premji took over the leadership of Wipro in the late 1960s. He built on a $2-million hydrogenated cooking fat business, adding multiple businesses to create a $10.5-billion revenue IT services organisation with a presence in 65 countries.

The other businesses of the Wipro group led by Premji have now grown to about $2 billion in revenues, spanning across consumer goods, precision engineering and healthcare systems. Azim Premji relinquished executive responsibilities at Wipro in July 2019 to focus on the philanthropic work of the foundation. He is a graduate in electrical engineering from Stanford University, USA.

Also Read: Wipro workforce shrinks for sixth quarter in a row with net decline of 6,180 employees in Q4

Shares of Wipro Ltd ended at ₹452.85, up by ₹8.55, or 1.92%, on the BSE.

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KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Top tech CEOs respond differently to the “poaching war” with Cognizant

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Wipro and Infosys have seen a slew of exits by top executives, many of whom have joined rival Cognizant.

Cognizant CEO Ravi Kumar has reportedly hired nearly 20 senior leaders from his previous employer Infosys and Wipro.

#DavosWithCNBCTV18 | ‘Just doing my business. Want to make Cognizant an employer of choice’ @Cognizant CEO Ravi Kumar S (@imravikumars) discusses recent controversy over former Wipro employee Jatin Dalal joining the co with @shereenbhan. Also says #AI is ‘under-hyped’!#WEF2024 pic.twitter.com/5D8vHeN0D5

— CNBC-TV18 (@CNBCTV18News) January 18, 2024

Wipro lost 10 top executives, including chief financial officer Jatin Dalal and senior vice president Mohammad Haque, to Cognizant.

The software giant founded by Azim Premji has now filed a suit against Cognizant to stop the alleged poaching in the future.

“We are not creating any prevention of employment or job opportunity for anybody. We are simply ensuring that we have signed a contract, and we want to ensure that we protect ourselves from an information standpoint,” Wipro executive chairman Rishad Premji told CNBC-TV18 at Davos on the sidelines of the ongoing World Economic Forum (WEF) 2024.

According to Premji, there needs to be a balance between organisational interests and individual career growth. “It is important that a contract is respected, and it is not an unreasonable request,” he added.

#DavosWithCNBCTV18 | ‘Had 4.7 million queries on our #AI chatbot internally,’ says @RishadPremji, Executive Chairman, @Wipro. Adds, the company uses its #chatbot for multiple things including applying for leaves, content generation etc.@ShereenBhan #WEF2024 #Davos pic.twitter.com/eZm1Rucck8

— CNBC-TV18 (@CNBCTV18News) January 17, 2024

Wipro is not the only one hit by the churn in top tech talent in India.

India’s second-largest software services exporter, Infosys, has seen as many as nine senior-level exits in the last 18 months. The resignations have surprised the company’s investors, whose employees famously prided themselves on being Infoscions for life.

Five out of the nine recent exits from Infosys have become CEOs at other IT
companies

However, Infosys managing director and CEO, Salil Parekh, isn’t worried. “We are fortunate. We very quickly put together the structure where a lot of people from within have moved into new, larger responsibility roles, and that seems to be working really well. My sense is that we have, even today, a really deep bench of leadership people. So, I don’t see any real concern. In fact, there is a huge energy, and, sometimes, with change, you get some new focus and attention as well,” he told CNBC-TV18 in an interview at Davos.

#DavosWithCNBCTV18 | ‘No change in #leadership structure, there are individuals who have been with us for decades,’ Salil Parekh, CEO & MD, @Infosys on senior level #exits. Adds, structure of shifting employees to higher leadership roles has worked well.@ShereenBhan #WEF2024 pic.twitter.com/cKuUJHXJ4R

— CNBC-TV18 (@CNBCTV18News) January 17, 2024

“We have had a pretty stable leadership for a long time. It seems to be rocky for some of our peers, but we’re happy we’re in a good spot,” C Vijayakumar, Managing Director of HCLTechnologies.

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Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Wipro’s Rishad Premji spots early ‘green shoots’ in 2024 amidst tech sector challenges

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

WEF 2024: Wipro commits to investing in AI — trains 2.5 lakh people while leveraging it

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Wipro has committed to investing about $1 billion over the next three years into AI360, launched in July 2023, said Wipro Executive Chairman Rishad Premji. The company is also training 2.5 lakh people while infusing the thinking of AI across the organisation.

Speaking to CNBC-TV18’s Managing Editor Shereen Bhan on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum summit in Davos, Switzerland, Premji stressed the mindset of leveraging AI pervasively within the organisation. The company is enforcing and infusing AI with different elements of the organisation, according to Premji.

Interestingly, Premji said that the HR department is leveraging AI for background verification. The Bengaluru-headquartered IT company’s chatbot, which has 40 functions with 98% accuracy, has received more than 4.7 million queries. The functions or use cases of this chatbot will be expanded to 100–150 from 40 currently.

Premji said, “We’re using it (the chatbot) for content generation on marketing. We’re using it to enable us to do a better job, faster job of responding to RFIs (requests for information) for sales pitches. So there’s a pervasive mindset of leveraging AI within the company.”

On the customer end, the company is unfolding a twin-track strategy. One is focused on the user experience—chat, contractual completions, assistance in transactions, and procedures to infuse AI into differentiated products. “That’s the whole mindset of customer service contact centres. Driving that pervasively as I say, it’s largely built on POC mode, I think it has opportunities to scale,” said Premji.

Secondly, he said, AI will leverage productivity for customers on the bedrock of a very strong mindset of safe, secure and transparent data. It will help customers to drive code better, develop synthetic data to allow for faster testing, and protect data more impactfully.

Talking about the governance of AI, Premji said, “We’ve just set up an AI Governance Committee. We have a chief security and AI data governance leader in the company who reports to our General Counsel. That team’s job is to look at every use case that we look at and look at it from a governance standpoint, from an individual assessment, from a social assessment, from a technical assessment, from an environmental assessment to make sure it’s okay to go out.”  

Large healthcare and telecom companies are among Wipro’s clients that seek to leverage Generative AI to deliver high-quality service and generate synthetic data to test products, respectively.

Premji further suggested that he doesn’t know what kind of acceleration AI will have in the coming years and said, “Is it going to have a mobile kind of journey? Is it going to have a cloud kind of journey? But I’m very hopeful that customers will look more and more at leveraging this for real business impact, faster than we anticipated,” he said.

Premji emphasized that the company is very likely to experiment in different areas, even if it hurts some revenue in the short term because it can create a use case for how the technology’s road ahead will look in the long term.

“There will certainly be some jobs that will require complete reimagination and complete reskilling. And that’s the job of us as companies, as industry, and as government to help reskill people to make them more relevant for the future,” Premji highlighted.

Premji said that, in the short term, AI is an augmenter and therefore people should embrace it instead of resisting it.

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Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Davos 2024 | Wipro’s Rishad Premji expresses confidence in leadership team

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Rishad Premji, Executive Chairman of Wipro, on Wednesday (January 17) underscored the resilience of the company’s leadership and asserted that the team is firmly aligned with both the execution strategy of the management and the visionary goals set by the promoters.

This comes after Wipro experienced close to 10 top level exits last calendar year, with many of its executives joining rival companies.

Speaking to CNBC-TV18’s Shereen Bhan on the sidelines of the Davos World Economic Forum (WEF) 2024, Premji said, “We have a strong, stable leadership team and an organisation of risk transforming and doing different things, we’re always going to have some people that come in and out.”

Addressing the leadership team’s capability, Premji emphasised, “If you’re supremely confident, I think we’re doing the right things, we are on a journey of change.”

He highlighted the stability and strength of Wipro’s leadership, asserting that the team is aligned with both the execution strategy of the management and the vision of the promoters.

Premji acknowledged the dynamic nature of the industry, stating, “We’re always going to have some people that come in and out. And so that doesn’t surprise me, that doesn’t destabilise us.” This recognition of the inherent fluidity in personnel is indicative of Wipro’s adaptability and resilience in the face of organisational changes.

When questioned about the company’s overall sentiment, Premji said, “We’re incredibly excited, incredibly strong. With deep rehab and the team, we believe in very, very clearly an alignment between the execution strategy of the management as well as the vision of the promoters. Absolutely.”

While acknowledging the catch-up game with peers, Premji asserted confidence in the company’s approach. “We have a strong, stable leadership team and an organisation risk-transforming and doing different things,” he added.

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KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Wipro management ‘aligned with board on targets, achievements’: CEO Delaporte

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Wipro Chairman Rishad Premji takes 50 percent compensation cut

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Wipro Chairman Rishad Premji will receive a total compensation of nearly $1 million ($951,353) for financial year ended March 2023, which is almost 50 percent less than that of his remuneration in the last fiscal ($1,819,022). This is as per Form 20-F filed with U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission by Wipro.

This reduction in compensation of Rishad Premji is witnessed for the first time since the pandemic when he had taken a cut of 31 percent. For the year 2019-20, he was compensated a total $0.68 million against $0.98 million in the previous year. Besides the compensation, Rishad Premji is entitled to a commission at the rate of 0.35% on incremental consolidated net profits. However, in light of the fact that the incremental consolidated net profit for fiscal year 2023 was negative, the company determined that no commission was payable for fiscal year 2023.

Not only Rishad Premji, Wipro’s Chief Financial Officer Jatin Pravinchandra Dalal too has seen a reduction in his compensation both in dollar and rupee terms. For the year 2022-23, he has been compensated a total $1.1 million (Rs 8.9 crore) against $1.6 million (Rs 12.1 crore) in the previous year, a cut of almost 32 percent.

This IT major’s CEO though remains highest paid CEO despite a minor reduction in the compensation in dollar terms. If we calculate in rupee terms, the remuneration of Thierry Delaporte, unlike Rishad Premji  and Jatin Dalal, has seen a minor increase. For the year ending march 2023, he will be compensated a total $10 million (Rs 82.41 crore) against $10.52 million (Rs 79.81 crore) in the year 2022. The value in dollar terms has come down by nearly 5 percent while in rupee terms, the remuneration is up more than 3 percent.

This Bengaulru-based IT company, has presented these details in the Form 20-F filed with Securities And Exchange Commission of United States.

In the month of April this year, company announced the earnings for Q4 and the fiscal, which were below than expectations. EBIT margin for the year was down 200 bps at 15.7 percent and for Q4, it was flat at 16.3 percent. Company though announced Rs 1,2000 crore share buyback via tender route.

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KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Davos 2023 | On recession, Wipro’s Rishad Premji feels there’s more of cautious optimism

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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There is more of cautious optimism in the air amid fears of a global recession, with hope for a short-lived recession in the US, Wipro Executive Chairman Rishad Premji told CNBC -TV18‘s Shereen Bhan on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

“I find there’s still uncertainty in the environment, but there’s more cautious optimism and I’m using the word more purposefully intentionally. So that’s one big change. The other thing I find is the environment is less sombre than I expected. People are more hopeful of how things will come back. People are more hopeful about the recession in the US perhaps or the slowdown in the US being more short-lived, people are a little bit more certain about Europe, but I also find it very contextual to companies and the companies within those countries and within those specific industries having very different journeys,” Premji said.

“So, when I talk to stakeholders here, some people are having a good run in Europe, some people are struggling in the US, which is counter to where the macro environment looks, but (it’s) generally more cautious optimism and a less sombre feeling that perhaps one felt before coming here,” he added.

Commenting on Wipro’s record total bookings of $4.3 billion in TCV terms, Premji said, “It is very encouraging that deals are transacting on scale. (There are) A couple of changes in the nature of deals, one I think – deal making is a little bit more cautious so people are taking a little bit more time to make decisions but yet deals are transacting which I think is incredibly positive.”

“The other big change is the focus of where deals are moving to, which I think is more cost based, more cost transformative, which I think is incredibly powerful. So the good news is there’s deals transacting and hopefully that should show up in business over the next several quarters.”

“We had more followers than we anticipated back in December. Some of that perhaps will continue as you move into December. So there’s a slow pick up, slow pick up back in January than you would have normally had in a less uncertain year. But the good news is deals are transacting and customs are still making strong, relevant decisions for their future.”

“I think there’s also a stronger orientation to ROI. So on investments that customers have made over the last two years, perhaps in a certain state of euphoria, they are demanding and saying, look, how do I make sure that I get returns for that investment. So there’s a huge focus on optimisation of spend which also helps partners like us very well because our role as a value orchestrator is to bring together the stuff that you have in the old legacy organisation and the new stuff you’re buying and how to make sense of it all to actually drive business outcomes.”

Premji believes that Wipro has had a decent financial year 2022 and he has a strong, well settled team that is focused on the market and transacting.

“Yes, we’re not going as fast as competition, but I think we’re having a decent year. If you look at our order booking over the first nine months, it’s 20% plus compared to last year. So all the lead indicators I think are powerful. I think we have the right leadership team which is settling in well. I think attrition levels are coming down dramatically, which is helping. So I’m quite optimistic and excited,” he said.

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Also Read: Wipro Q3 Result: March quarter guidance below expectations even as margin improves 120 basis points

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Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Rishad Premji says Wipro fired a senior employee in 10 minutes for ‘huge integrity violation’

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Weeks after disclosing that Wipro fired hundreds of employees caught moonlighting, its chairman Rishad Premji made yet another stunning disclosure on a public platform.

He said the software services firm fired one of its top 20 leaders ten minutes after he was found to have committed a “huge integrity violation.” Premji was speaking at the Nasscom Product Conclave in Bengaluru on October 19.

“We made that decision in 10 minutes. It was an important role that this person ran for the organisation but when the times are tough, and you have to make those tough calls,” he said.

He did not elaborate on whether this violation was also related to moonlighting or something else. Premji also did not take questions from the press on the sidelines of the event.

This is the second time in a month that Premji has emphasised how the IT services company values integrity. As a debate raged over moonlighting in the tech sector, Premji in September described it as a “complete violation of integrity in its deepest form”. This disclosure too was made at an event of the All India Management Association.

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The policy is black and white for any kind of integrity violation or harassment, he stressed on October 19. “There is a zero-one policy for any form of integrity violation, any form of harassment. You can be me in the company, and I won’t have a job if I violate one of those two,” Premji said.

He also talked about another senior person the Bengaluru-based company had let go of six-seven years ago, who was getting someone else to tag in and out for them.

“We found that out and that person got fired effective immediately. This person was well connected, and reached out through every form of medium to put a lot of pressure on the organisation to give him a clean, relieving certificate. We said we are black and white about this,” he said, asking startups to make tough calls.

In his advice to startups, he said they must focus on building valuable businesses instead of valuation.

“This is an obsession today on the unicorn status and how much you’re valued at… the journey to build sustainable businesses is long, it’s complex, it’s slow at times. If your journey is to make money quickly, the kind of organisation you will build is very different than an organisation that you want to last,” he said.

He added that founders must choose the right people for the companies. “The most dangerous people in organisations are people who are incredibly successful, but leave 1,000 dead bodies on the way while they succeed. But that’s not sustainable. I think, in large organisations, it doesn’t take you very far. It only takes you to a certain point,” he added.

Talking about hybrid work, Premji said all of Wipro’s employees should come back some of the time. “We don’t want all of our people to come back all the time.”

“We can’t be dogmatic and fixated about that. You have to be quite adaptive in terms of how this evolves,” he added.

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3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Infosys does not support dual employment, fired violators in last 12 months: Salil Parekh

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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India’s second-largest IT services company Infosys on Thursday made it clear that the company does not support moonlighting and said it has fired employees who were into dual employment over the last 12 months. Infosys, however, did not divulge the exact number of people who were “let go” on account of moonlighting.

Last month, Wipro chairman Rishad Premji revealed that some 300 employees were fired as the IT services company had no place for any employee who chose to work directly with rivals while being on Wipro payrolls. Put simply, moonlighting refers to employees taking up side gigs to work on more than one job at a time.

On Thursday, during the Q2 earnings briefing, Infosys CEO Salil Parekh said the company does not support dual employment.

“We don’t support dual employment… if we found… in the past, employee doing blatant work in two specific companies where there is a confidentiality issue, we have let go of them n the last 12 months,” Parekh said.

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Infosys is among the companies that have taken a strong stance on moonlighting. It recently shot off a missive to its employees asserting that moonlighting is not permitted, and warned that any violation of contract clauses will trigger disciplinary action “which could even lead to termination of employment”.

“No two-timing – no moonlighting!” the company had said. The issue of moonlighting emerged as a big talking point after Rishad Premji flagged the issue. Premji had taken to Twitter to highlight the issue saying: “There is a lot of chatter about people moonlighting in the tech industry. This is cheating – plain and simple.”

HCL Technologies too has weighed into the issue of moonlighting and has said it does not approve of dual employment, although it hastened to add that the issue is not a major one within the company.

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Parekh said where gig opportunities in the external environment is concerned, Infosys supports the aspirations of employees to learn beyond their work but after prior approval of the manager has been obtained.

“We will support them to work on certain gig projects after the prior approval of the managers. We are also developing more comprehensive policies for that while ensuring contractual and confidentiality commitments are fully respected. However to be clear, we do not support dual employment,” he said.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow