Wipro promotes founder Premji heir apparent to board

Wipro Ltd, India's third-biggest software services exporter, has appointed the son of billionaire founder Azim Premji to its board, in a long awaited promotion that moves the chairman's heir apparent closer to the top spot.

Rishad Premji, eldest son and a Harvard Business School graduate, was already Wipro's chief strategy officer. He joins the board from May 1.

The appointment was announced on Tuesday alongside Wipro's fourth-quarter earnings and a modest 2 percent rise in profit. That beat expectations of a slight dip, thanks to a rise in its Western clients' technology spending.

Wipro founder Azim Premji took over his own 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's Chief Executive Officer T.K. Kurien said Rishad's elevation to the board is to take care of shareholders' interests.

"We have always messaged the fact that there is going to be shareholder interest being taken care of by getting somebody on the board and Rishad has really filled that role. As far as his role is concerned, nothing has changed. It continues the way it is. He represents shareholders' interests. He is a valued member of the Wipro management team and we continue to expect that he will do well to the job he has got in hand. There is nothing much to be read into this other than the fact he is really in a way representing shareholders' interest," said Kurien.

For its fourth quarter ended March 31, Wipro's net profit rose to 22.72 billion rupees ($361.38 million), compared with 22.27 billion rupees in the same period the previous year, the company said in a statement.

Total revenue rose to 121.4 billion rupees in the quarter, a rise of 4 percent over last year, as the company added 65 new clients.

Meanwhile, Kurien also spoke about the recent expansion in the core group of the company. Former BPO head of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) Abid Ali Neemuchwala, joined the company last month as the group president and Chief Operating Officer (COO).

"Integrated deals are becoming more and more prevalent as we go along and to that extent Abid's first priority really is to create an integrate stack that he can take to market and make sure that we attack as much as we defend and from the defense perspective it's really mining, so a counter mining is something we really have to get in place and start focusing on, for us to essentially grow up business more effectively the base that we own and I think that's really his role," said Kurien.

Wipro, which makes about three quarters of its sales in the United States and Europe, said its IT services revenue is likely to be $1.77 billion to $1.79 billion in the June quarter, growth of up to 1.1 percent from the preceding quarter.

Wipro has been looking to boost revenue from high margin services that help overseas clients seeking to speed up automation and do more business online.