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Azim Premji ((born July 24, 1945), an Indian businessman, is the Chairman & CEO of Wipro, one of
the largest software companies in India. Its headquarters is in Bangalore, "the Indian Silicon City".
Azim Premji was rated the richest person in the country from 1999 to 2005 by Forbes. His wealth
in 2006 was estimated at $14.8 Billion which places him as the Fifth Richest Indian. He is now
considered to be worth closer to 17.1 billion.c
c
Azim Hasham Premji, founder of Wipro Limited, India's biggest and most competitive IT company
based in Bangalore, was born on July 24th 1945 in Bombay. Premji was forced to leave his studies
in computer science from Stanford University, California, USA at the age of 21 to take over the
family business of vegetable oils when his father M.H. Premji, suddenly passed away in 1966. He
has since after a gap of over thirty years completed his degree in Electrical Engineering.c

The Amalner-based vanaspathi manufacturing company, the Western India Vegetable Product
later became Wipro Products Ltd, Wipro Technologies and Wipro Corporation. Under Premji's
leadership Wipro embarked on an ambitious phase of expansion and diversification. The
Company began manufacturing light bulbs with General Electric and other consumer products
including soaps, baby care products, shampoos, powder etc. In 1975, Wipro Fluid Power business
unit manufacturing hydraulic cylinders and truck tippers was started. But Premji's ambitions did
not stop there. In the 1980s Wipro entered the IT field, taking advantage of the expulsion of IBM
from the Indian market in 1975. Thus, Wipro became involved in manufacturing computer
hardware, software development and related items, under a special license from Sentinel. As a
result, the $1.5 million company in hydrogenated cooking fats grew within a few years to a $662
million diversified, integrated corporation in services, medical systems, technology products and
consumer items with offices worldwide.

The company's IT division became the world¶s first to win SEI CMM level 5 and PCMM Level 5
(People Capability Maturity Model) certification, the latest in quality standards. A large percentage
of the company's revenues are generated by the IT division. Wipro works with leading global
companies, such as Alcatel, Nokia, Cisco and Nortel and has a joint venture in Medical Systems
with General Electric company.

Premji's story of success and prominence clearly shows how determination and perseverance,
when coupled with knowledge, clear vision and proper planning, enable one to reach the peak of
success and leadership. A straight forward person, he doesn't believe in resorting to bribery or
corruption to get things done and associates quality with integrity. He is an absolute workaholic
and according to him work is the only way to success and survival in a competitive environment.
A tough employer, he expects his employees to be competent and will not tolerate lies or
deception from anyone.

Azim Hasham Premji finds himself in the Forbes Billionaire List 2000, placed in 41st position with
a wealth of $ 6.4 billion. Over the years, Azim Premji has been privileged with many honors and
accolades. He was chosen as the Business India's 'Businessman of the Year 2000', He was named
by Fortune (August 2003) as one of the 25 most powerful business leaders outside the US, Forbes
(March 2003) listed him as one of ten people globally, Business Week featured (October 2003) him
on their cover with the sobriquet 'India's tech king'. The Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee
and the Manipal Academy of Higher Education have both conferred honorary doctorates on him.
He is also a member of the Prime Minister's Advisory Committee for Information Technology in
India.

In the year 2001, Premji established Azim Premji Foundation, a not-for-profit organization with a
vision of influencing the lives of millions of children in India by facilitating the universalisation of
elementary education. The foundation works closely with the state governments of Karnataka,
Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh etc and the programs cover over 5000 rural schools. Premji
contributes the financial resources for the foundation.

Personally, Premji is known for his humility and helping mentality. Easily one of the richest men in
the world, he always travels in economy class. One of his favorite recreational activity is hiking.
He leads a quiet life with his wife Yasmin Premji who had worked for 'Inside Outside' (editorial) in
Mumbai and his two sons in a simple, but elegant villa in Bangalore. The elder son, Rishad, works
in the USA for GE and the younger one, Tariq, has co-founded a dotcom and works from
Bangalore. Mr. Premji who holds 78% stakes in the company does not believe in naming one of
his sons as his successor just for the norms.

Chairman of Wipro Technologies; Richest Indian for the past several years; Honored with Padma
Bhushan in 2005. c
c
Azim Premji is Chairman of Wipro Technologies, one of the largest software companies in India.
He is an icon among Indian businessmen and his success story is a source of inspiration to a
number of budding entrepreneurs.cc
c
Born on July 24, 1945, Azim Hashim Premji was studying Electrical Engineering from Stanford
University, USA when due to the sudden demise of his father, he was called upon to handle the
family business. Azim Premji took over the reins of family business in 1966 at the age of 21. c

At the first annual general meeting of the company attended by Azeem Premji, a shareholder
doubted Premji's ability to handle business at such a young age and publicly advised him to sell
his shareholding and give it to a more mature management. This spurred Azim Premji and made
him all the more determined to make Wipro a success story. And the rest is history.cc
c
When Azim Premji occupied the hot seat, Wipro dealt in hydrogenated cooking fats and later
diversified to bakery fats, ethnic ingredient based toiletries, hair care soaps, baby toiletries,
lighting products and hydraulic cylinders. Thereafter Premji made a focused shift from soaps to
software. c
c
Under Azim Premji's leadership Wipro has metamorphosed from a Rs.70 million company in
hydrogenated cooking fats to a pioneer in providing integrated business, technology and process
solutions on a global delivery platform. Today, Wipro Technologies is the largest independent
R&D service provider in the world. c
c
Azim Premji has several achievements to his credit. In 2000, Asiaweek magazine, voted Premji
among the 20 most powerful men in the world. Azim Premji was among the 50 richest people in
the world from 2001 to 2003 listed by Forbes. In April 2004, Times Magazine, rated him among the
100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine. He is also the richest Indian for the
past several years. In 2005,Government of India honored Azim Premji with Padma Bhushan.c
c
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When the man was recently honored with the Businessman of the Year 2000 award, he attributed
his stupendous success to the 12,000 people who work for Wipro Corporation. Nor did he forget
to mention his family. The great man then shared some tips for success:

When the man was recently honored with the Businessman of the Year 2000 award, he attributed
his stupendous success to the 12,000 people who work for Wipro Corporation. Nor did he forget
to mention his family. The great man then shared some tips for success:

‡ Have the courage to think big.

‡ Never compromise on fundamental values, no matter what the situation.
‡ Build up self-confidence, always look ahead.
‡ Always have the best around you, even if they are better than you are.
‡ Have an obsessive commitment to quality.
‡ Play to win.
‡ Leave the rest to the force beyond.

Premji the businessman practices what he preaches. When it comes to upholding personal
values, there's no margin for error. Wipro managers speak in awe of the time they received a terse
message that their chairman was flying down to Bangalore for a meeting. It was clear that
something major was in the offing. Premji came straight to the point. A senior general manager of
the company had been given marching orders-because he'd inflated a travel bill. The man's
contribution to the company was significant; the bill's amount was not. Yet he had to go for this
solitary lapse. It was, Premji stressed, a matter of principles.

Wipro's code of conduct for employees says it all: Don't do anything that you're unwilling to have
published in tomorrow's newspaper with your photograph next to it.

It's that kind of integrity that has catapulted Premji and Wipro to unprecedented heights.

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Nagavara Ramarao Narayana Murthy, known as N. R. Narayana Murthy, is

an Indian industrialist,software engineer and one of the seven founders
of Infosys Technologies, a global consulting and IT services company
based in India. He is currently the non-executive Chairman and Chief
Mentor of Infosys. He was the CEO of the company for 21 years, from 1981
to 2002. After stepping down as CEO in 2002, he has broadened his scope
of activities to social services as well as promoting India globally.
Murthy's corporate and social vision has been appreciated globally and he
is the recipient of several awards including Padma Vibushan - India's
second highest civilian award.



N R Narayana Murthy, 53, has a resume befitting a man who founded what
'Asia Money' called 1998's Best Managed Indian Company and one of a
handful of the best managed companies in the Asia-pacific region.
Graduating as a Bachelor of Technology from the University of Mysore in
1967, he completed a Masters in Technology, Computer Science from the
Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, in 1969.
His career began as a modestly paid Chief Systems Programmer in the
Indian Institute of Management, Ahemadabad in 1969, which gave him a
chance to be close to the latest IT developments. He joined SESA in Paris
as a systems engineer in 1972 and in 1975 he worked for the systems
research institute in Pune, before heading the software group in Patni
Computer Systems. It was from Patni that he persuaded six colleagues to
join him in starting Infosys Technologies.

Known for his visionary Management Style, Murthy has received various
national and international awards, including the IT Man-of-the-year in 1996
and other awards for his leadership skills. Businessweek named him in its
June 1998 issue as one of its "Stars-Of-Asia". He was the chairman of the
National Association of Software and Service Companies (NASSCOM)
between 1992 and 1994 and is a member of the governing councils of
several central government institutions. He is also in demand as a guest
lecturer at engineering and business schools, such as the Kellogg and
Wharton Business Schools, and Stanford and Harvard Universities.cInfosys
was founded by seven software professionals with the objective of
conducting an experiment in leveraging sweat equity and creating
wealthlegally and ethically. At that time however, most companies were
founded on the basis of financial strength and parentage. But the original
idea of Infosys was to add value to India & to create high quality jobs for
bright young men and women.
The actual business of Infosys is Customised Software Development, re-
engineering and maintenance in many vertical areas. They were India's first
software industry to conceptualise, articulate and implement the concept of
offshore software development. Infosys was also among the first Indian
Software companies to be assessed at level 4 of the Capability Maturity
Model of the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) and to obtain company
wide immediate certification for ISO 9001
c