Azim premji Born onJuly 24, 1946 - Bombay, India Designation:- Founder and Chairman of wipro Country Of Citizenship:-

India Occupation- Businessman Industry:- IT Services, Business Product Outsourcing, Product Engineering Solutions, Technology Infrastructure Services (TIS)

Introduction Azim Hashim Premji, founder of Wipro Limited, Indias biggest and most competitive IT Company based in Bangalore, was born on July 24th 1945 in Bombay Premjis 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 doesnt 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. History Premji was born in Bombay (now Mumbai), India, to a Gujarati Khoja Shia Isna-ashari Muslim family. His father M. H. Premji owned the Western India Vegetable Product Company (which later became Wipro Ltd.) which made hydrogenated vegetable oils and fats. His grandfather was the rice king of Burma. His father had declined an invitation from M.A. Jinnah to go to Pakistan. While he completed his initial education at St. Mary's School, Mumbai, Premji was forced to leave his studies in electrical engineering from Stanford University, California, USA at the age of 21 to take over the family business when his father, M.H. Premji, suddenly died in 1966. He has since after a gap of over thirty years completed his degree in Electrical Engineering Expansion & Diversification 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.[10] The Amalner-based vanaspathi manufacturing company, the Western India Vegetable Product later became Wipro Products Ltd, Wipro Technologies and Wipro Corporation. Under Premjis 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. Timeline In 1975, Wipro Fluid Power business unit manufacturing hydraulic cylinders and truck tippers was started. But Premjis 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 companys IT division became the worlds first to win SEI CMM level 5 and PCMM Level 5 (People Capability Maturity Model) certification, the latest in quality standards. 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 activities is hiking. Premji is married to Yasmeen, the couple has two children, Rishad and Tariq.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. Early life Premji was born in Karachi,which was in India, now in Pakistan, to an affluent Gujarati, Shia Nizari Ismaili Muslim entrepreneur MH Hasham Premji who owned the Western India Products (which later became Wipro Ltd.) which made hydrogenated vegetable oils and fats. It was listed in Bombay Stock Exchange in 1945. His grandfather too was an entrepreneur and popularly called the rice king of Burma. MH Hasham Premji famously declined an invitation from Muhammed Ali Jinnah to go to Pakistan, in wake of the Partition of India.[6] While he completed his initial education at St. Mary's School, Mumbai, Premji was forced to leave his studies in electrical engineering from Stanford University, California, USA at the age of 21 to

take over the family business when his father suddenly died in 1966. MH Hasham Premji's networth was estimated to be $1 million then. Azim has since after a gap of over thirty years completed his degree in Electrical Engineering.[7

Azim Hashim Premji (born 24 July 1945) is an Indian business tycoon and philanthropistwho is the chairman of Wipro Limited, guiding the company through four decades of diversification and growth to emerge as one of the Indian leader in the software industry. According to Forbes, he is currently the third wealthiest Indian with a personal wealth of US$16.8 billion in 2011, as well as being the richest Indian Muslim. In 2000, he was voted among the 20 most powerful men in the world by Asiaweek. He was also among the 50 richest people in the world from 1999 to 2005 according to Forbes. In April 2004, he was rated among the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine. His assets include 74% of Wipro. Wipro Limited, which dealt in hydrogenated cooking fats along with consumer products, grew from a company of US $2.5 million to a giant of $6 billion under Premji's leadership. Wipro Technologies, one of its group companies, is one of India's largest software companies and is ranked among the top 100 technology companies globally.

Honours and awards Premji has been recognized by Business Week as one of the Greatest Entrepreneurs for being responsible for Wipro emerging as one of the worlds fastest growing companies. In 2000, he was conferred an honorary doctorate by the Manipal Academy of Higher Education. In 2006, Azim Premji was awared Lakshya Business Visionary by National Institute of Industrial Engineering, Mumbai.[34] As on March 9, 2010, he was one of the wealthiest people in India, with a net worth of $17 billion.[35] He was awarded a Doctor of Literature (D.Litt.), an honorary degree, from the Aligarh Muslim University on the 18th of June, 2008 on the occasion of 58th Convocation Ceremony of the University. In 2009, he was awarded an honorary doctorate from Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut for his outstanding philanthropic work.In 2005 the government of India honored him with the title of Padma Bhushan for his outstanding work in trade and commerce. In 2011, he has been awarded Padma Vibhushan, the second highest civilian award by the Government of India.

Wipro Equity Reward Trust In 1984, Azim Premji established the Wipro Equity Reward Trust[38] to allow employees to acquire stake in Wipro's success and growth. They WERT, which is administered by a Board of Trustees is designed to give eligible employees the right to receive restricted shares and other compensation benefits at the stipulated times and conditions. Such compensation benefits include voluntary contributions, loans, interest and dividends on investments in the WERT and other similar benefits. Shares from the WERT are issued in the joint names of the WERT and the employee until such restrictions and obligations are fulfilled by the employee. After a fouryear period, complete ownership of the shares is transferred to the employee. If employment is terminated by death, disability or retirement, his or her restricted shares are transferred to the employees legal heirs or continue to be held by the employee, as the case may be, and such individuals may exercise any rights to those shares for up to 90 days after employment has ceased. Azim Premji University In 2001, he founded Azim Premji Foundation. The Azim Premji University was established under the Azim Premji University Act 2010 of the Government of Karnataka to award degrees in teacher training. Five new titles of educational CDs for Indian schools were produced earlier in 2005. They are:

Friendly Animals and Journey on the Clouds (English) Swatantra Divas Fun with Chinchoo in Mathematics Khel-Mel (Hindi), released in February 2005.

With these, the total number of master titles available is 70[citation needed]. There are now 68 titles in Karnataka, 42 for Andhra Pradesh, 35 for Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry, 18 for Urdu medium schools, six for Orissa, 14 for Gujarat, 3 for Punjab and 1 for Kerala. This Foundation is also involved in computer-based assessment in Andhra Pradesh (50,000 students took part in early 2005), a learning guarantee programme, and a policy planning unit in Karnataka. In December 2010, he pledged to donate $2 billion for improving school education in India. This would be done by transferring 213 million equity shares of Wipro Ltd, held by a few entities controlled by him, to the Azim Premji Trust.[40] This donation is the first of its kind by any Indian billionaire. Azim Premji has led Wipro since 1966. Then a USD 2 million hydrogenated cooking fat company, Wipro Limited is today a USD 5 billion revenue IT, BPO and R&D Services

organization with presence in over 50 countries. He started at Wipro with one basic idea - to build an organization which was deeply committed to values, in the firm belief that success in business would be its inevitable, eventual outcome. Unflinching commitment to values continues to remain at the core of Wipro. Premji strongly believes that ordinary people are capable of extraordinary things and that the key to this is creating highly charged teams. He takes a personal interest in developing teams and leaders and invests significant time as a faculty in Wipros leadership development programs. In Premjis view, the Wipro brand promise of Applying Thought is the driving force for delivering value for customers - which is the heart of business success. This has driven Wipros pioneering efforts in Quality, culminating in the Wipro Way, which integrates the methods and practices of Six Sigma, PCMM, CMMi and Lean amongst others. It also drives Wipros focus on applying innovation for direct customer benefits - improving their time-to-market, enhancing their predictability and reliability and cutting their costs. He is firmly committed to the belief that business organizations have deep social responsibility and that this must be discharged by conducting ethical and fair business, by involvement with community issues and by building an ecologically sustainable business. Wipro is deeply involved in trying to improve the quality of school education through its Wipro Applying Thought in Schools initiative, in local community causes through Wipro Cares and is determinedly committed to a journey which weaves ecological sensitivity in every aspect of its business and organization. Over the years, Azim Premji has received many honors and accolades, which he believes are recognitions for each person who has contributed to Wipro. Business Week listed him amongst the top 30 entrepreneurs in world history (July 2007), and featured him on their cover with the sobriquet Indias Tech King (October 2003). Financial Times included him in the global list of 25 people who are dramatically reshaping the way people live, work or think and have done most to bring about significant and lasting social, political or cultural changes (October 2005, November 2004). Time listed him as one amongst the 100 most influential people in the world (April 2004). He was named by Fortune as one of the 25 most powerful business leaders outside the US (August 20030, Forbes listed him as one of ten people globally, who have the most power to effect change (March 2003). He was adjudged the Business Leader of the Year 2004 by the Economic Times. In 2005, he became the first Indian recipient of the Faraday Medal. The Indian Institute of

Technology, Roorkee and the Manipal Academy of Higher Education have both conferred honorary doctorates on him, while XLRI, Jamshedpur has conferred the Sir Jehangir Ghandy Medal for Industrial and Social Peace. In 2000, the Visvesvaraya Technological University conferred the Sir M. Visvesvaraya Memorial Award on him and the Institute of Electronics and Telecommunication Engineers conferred on him its highest honor - the Honorary Fellowship. He is a non-executive Director on the Board of the Reserve Bank of India. He is also a member of the Prime Ministers Committee for Trade and Industry in India. In January 2005, The Government of India conferred upon him the Padma Bhushana, one of the highest civilian awards in the country. In the year 2001, Premji established the Azim Premji Foundation, a not-for-profit organization with a vision to significantly contribute to quality primary education for every child, in order to build a just, equitable and humane society. The financial resources to this foundation have been personally contributed by Premji. The current programs of the Azim Premji Foundation engage 2.5 million children in more than 17,000 schools across India. In October 2006, the Foundation was recognized as the Corporate Citizen of the year by the Economic Times. Azim Premji is a graduate in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University, USA.