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.