Azim Premji

Chairman of Wipro

Net worth: US$16.1 billion (April 2017)

Born on 24 July 1945, Azim Premji is one of the instantly recognizable faces in the Indian business industry. Apart from being a business tycoon, he is the Chairman of Wipro and a well-known philanthropist. He is also unofficially regarded as the Czar of the information technology industry of India. Ever since its inception, Wipro – under Premji’s capable guidance and leadership – has kept growing and diversifying and is right now held as one of the leading companies in its domain in the country. Premji was also supposedly the wealthiest person in the country in the six-year span of 1999 through 2005 according to Forbes.

The same globally-revered magazine also states that as of 2015, he is the fourth richest in India and 61st across the world. As of 2014, his personal wealth totalled to 16.4 billion. His personal net worth was estimated at 19.1 billion dollars in March 2015. During 2010, he was voted in Asia Week as one of the 20 most powerful men in the continent. TIME Magazine has twice enlisted him among the most influential 100 people in the world – first in 2004 and then in 2011. Premji holds 75% of the shares of his company, besides owning a private equity fund named Premjiinvest. Premjiinvest is responsible for managing the personal investment portfolio of Premji, which is estimated to be worth a billion dollars.

In 1945, Muhammed Hashim Premji incorporated Western Indian Vegetable Products Ltd, based at Amalner, a small town in the Jalgaon district of Maharashtra. It used to manufacture cooking oil under the brand name Sunflower Vanaspati, and a laundry soap called 787, a byproduct of oil manufacture. In 1966, on the news of his father's death, the then 21-year-old Azim Premji returned home from Stanford University, where he was studying engineering, to take charge of Wipro. The company, which was called Western Indian Vegetable Products at the time, dealt in hydrogenated oil manufacturing but Azim Premji later diversified the company to bakery fats, ethnic ingredient based toiletries, hair care soaps, baby toiletries, lighting products, and hydraulic cylinders. In the 1980s, the young entrepreneur, recognising the importance of the emerging IT field, took advantage of the vacuum left behind by the expulsion of IBM from India, changed the company name to Wipro and entered the high-technology sector by manufacturing minicomputers under technological collaboration with an American company Sentinel Computer Corporation. Thereafter Premji made a focused shift from soaps to software.

The Giving Pledge

Premji has said that being rich "did not thrill" him.He became the first Indian to sign up for The Giving Pledge, a campaign led by Warren Buffett and Bill Gates, to encourage the wealthiest people to make a commitment to give most of their wealth to philanthropic causes. He is the third non-American after Richard Branson and David Sainsbury to join this philanthropy club.

"I strongly believe that those of us, who are privileged to have wealth, should contribute significantly to try and create a better world for the millions who are far less privileged"--- Azim Premji (AP)

In April 2013 he said that he has already given more than 25 per cent of his personal wealth to charity.

In July 2015, he gave away an additional 18% of his stake in Wipro, taking his total contribution so far to 39%.

In December 2010, he pledged to donate US$2 billion for improving school education in India. This has been done by transferring 213 million equity shares of Wipro Ltd, held by a few entities controlled by him, to the Azim Premji Trust. This donation is the largest of its kind in India.

Awards & Achievements

• Azim Premji is the recipient of several honorary degrees. In 2000, he was conferred an honorary doctorate by the Manipal Academy of Higher Education and in 2009 he was awarded an honorary doctorate from Wesleyan University in Connecticut for his outstanding philanthropic work.
• In 2005, he was conferred with the Padma Bhushan by the Government of India for his outstanding work in trade and commerce.
• He was awarded the Padma Vibhushan, the second highest civilian award by the Government of India, in 2011