Azim Premji
Azim Premji
Birthday : 07/24/1945
Place of birth : Gujarati - India
Country of residence : India
Linked companies : Wipro Limited
Biography
Azim Premji studied at Stanford. In 1966 at 21 years old, hardly graduated in engineering, the death of his father compels him to stop his studies in order to take over the family business in Bombay. Founded in 1945, the Western Vegetable Indian Products was initially a company specialized in the transformation of peanut oil.
During the 80s, Azim Premji altered the company which produced soap and cooking oil in global player in IT services. He preserved the acronym: Wipro. Azim Premji holds 84% of the company listed in Bombay and New York. According to Forbes, he is the 36th richest man in the world with a fortune estimated at $ 16.8 billion. Azim Premji is nicknamed the “Indian Bill Gates”.
The company employs 80,000 people around the world, including 15,000 outside the territory of India and counts among its clients Sony, Alcatel, Nokia, Siemens or Cisco.
In forty years, Azim Premji has transformed a company that realized a turnover of $ 2 million in food and cosmetics’ sales in a giant in software ($ 1.1 billion of turnover). The company was certified CMM5, the highest level of maturity in software quality.
Wipro is organized around five business segments: industrial, retail, healthcare, energy, and telecommunications. It bought the integrator Portuguese Enabler, specializing in the distribution. In France, Wipro has a strong position in insurance and banking.
Azim Premji has created his Foundation and he has co-chaired the annual meeting of World Economic Forum in Davos in 2010.
Anecdotes
Azim Premji travels in economy class and drives a Ford Escort. He prefers the three-star hotels. Indian billionaire has served guests of the marriage of his son in paper plates ...
His eldest son, Rishad is graduated from Harvard. He is general manager of treasury and investor relations for Wipro.
