Premji replaces Soota with Vivek Paul on Wipro board

In a major restructuring exercise within five months, Azim

H Premji, Chairman, Wipro Corporation, has brought in Vivek Paul as Vice-Chairman on the

Board of Directors, effective July 26. Vivek will also be the President and the Chief

Executive Officer of Wipro Infotech Software and Services group, and will be based at

Wipro’s Santa Clara office in California. Vivek replaces Ashok Soota, who was the

Vice-Chairman, Wipro Limited. Soota, after 15 years with Wipro, is leaving the company to

a start-up venture. Soota will be joining a start-up floated among others by N Krishna

Kumar of Wipro and Subrato Bagchi of Lucent.

Vivek, 41, joins Wipro from the $700-million business unit

of GE of the US, where he is the head of the Global Computerized Tomography (CT) business.

He joined GE in 1989 and Wipro GE Medical Systems in 1990. Prior to his present job, Vivek

was also the President and CEO of Wipro GE in 1993, for nearly three years. "I am

extremely excited about working with Wipro again. The software industry worldwide is

growing very rapidly. With Wipro’s fundamental strengths in people, technology and

value-based management, I see a huge opportunity for globalizing Wipro’s software

business," Vivek said.

"To realize our vision of a global software leader in

software services and having established our quality leadership through the elite global

distinction of SEI Level 5 in all divisions of our software business, it is clear that we

have to move our center of gravity closer to our customers overseas. As part of this

effort, I welcome Vivek Paul into Wipro Corporation once again," Premji said.

"Ashok’s contribution to building Wipro’s Information Technology business

has been significant. He represented Wipro in various industry fora, and has contributed

in providing direction to the Indian IT industry as well. It has been a privilege knowing

Ashok and working with him. I wish him every success," Premji added.