BS People: T K Kurien

In April 2008, Wipro’s technology business saw one of its biggest churns in the wake of the appointment of Girish Paranjpe and Suresh Vaswani as joint CEOs under an experimental management structure devised by Chairman Azim Premji. Then BPO chief T K Kurien could have quit for greener pastures like colleagues Sudip Nandy, Sudip Banerjee and P R Chandasekar.

But he preferred to remain and take on the job as head of new initiatives — a role that had not even been given formal shape — reporting to Paranjpe and Premji. But the patience of this chartered accountant seems to have paid off. Emerging as a dark horse, Kurien, 50, was unexpectedly chosen last week to steer Wipro’s IT business as CEO under a simpler management structure. He has also been appointed executive director.

An aggressive business leader and avid reader of history and strategy, TKK, as he is known within the company, embodies the flamboyance of Vaswani and the caution of Paranjpe. A relative newcomer to the Wipro world compared to his predecessors, Kurien was formerly the CEO of GE X Ray and CFO of GE Medical Systems (South Asia).