Azim Premji - Living small, giving large

NEW DELHI: Azim Premji, currently India’s second richest man (after Mukesh Ambani) with a wealth of $21-billion, was so embarrassed when he was named by Forbes as the country’s richest man, back in the heydays of India’s IT services — late 90s — that he didn’t take any congratulatory calls. It fell on Ashok Soota, who ran the IT services business that made Premji a billionaire, to talk about his boss and what made him special.

Many, many things make ‘Azim’, as he’s fondly called by his friends, special.Integrity tops the list, modesty comes a close second. His philanthropy, ability to spot an opportunity, whether in business or people, focus, professionalism, the list is long.
He practised corporate governance before it became a fashionable jargon. He braved a five-and-half month strike for sacking an employee for submitting fake bills, in 1984. His closest associates aver that his belief in principles and ability to stand by them never faltered in the five decades he ran Wipro and built it from a small family-run vegetable oils and soaps business to the multi-billion dollar software-to-soaps enterprise it is today.

Anurag Behar, CEO of Azim Premji Foundation (which owns 67% of the economic interest of Wipro Ltd) says that as a young engineer 30 years ago, the only reason he joined Wipro was “because of the reputation Wipro had for uncompromising integrity. In the mid-to-late 80s this was a strange reputation for a private business to have. After 25 years of being both in front-line functions and in the CEO post, I can vouch that he has built this company with absolute, unwavering integrity.”

Premji’s tales of thriftiness are legendary. And so is his giving. He was the first Indian to sign the Bill Gates and Warren Buffet’s ‘Giving Pledge’ to donate 50% of his wealth in his lifetime.
What doesn’t immediately pop up when talking of this reticent man is his ability to nurture talent. By one count, there are over 200 CEOs/CFOs and CXOs among Wipro’s alumni. Many became entrepreneurs themselves. Soota went on to found two companies: MindTree and later, Happiest Minds. Subroto Bagchi and N Krishna Kumar were the co-founders of Mind-Tree. Suresh Vaswani, a former co-CEO, became head of Dell Services, Som Mittal of Digital India.

His perseverance can be seen from the fact that while he legendarily dropped out of Stanford with a semester left to return to India after the sudden demise of his father, he finished his degree — a BSE in electrical engineering — about 10 years ago.
Dileep Ranjekar, a close associate of Premji’s of over four decades, say there are three things that set him apart: Intensity, professionalism, and middle class values.
“He has this rare intensity to make things work — a single-minded focus to get things done as prioritised by him or the organisation,” says Ranjekar who was Wipro’s long-time HR head before starting Premji’s philanthropic initiatives and is also CEO of Azim Premji Foundation.
He also says, “I have not seen an ownerprofessional like him. In the 43 years I have worked with him he never sent a single recruitment related-recommendation.” Ranjekar adds, “His frugal living, lack of pomposity and practice of middle-class values had an enormous impact on the organisation’s values.”
Premji’s friendship and rivalry with N R Narayana Murthy-led Infosys, spurred both companies and made them the poster boys for Indian tech on the global arena. Murthy, in fact, had met Premji when the latter was looking for someone to head his tech business. Premji was then focused on building a hardware business wanting to take advantage of IBM’s exit from India. Murthy was clear his calling was IT services. The two parted to the benefit of the Indian tech industry as both went onto build multi-billion dollar companies.
When Rishad, Premji’s Wesleyan, Harvard Business School-educated elder son, joined the business, it was always clear that he would be on the ownership track at Wipro, headed for the chairman’s office, and not on the executive track towards a CEO post. Tariq, his younger son, is involved with Premji’s philanthropic work.
His exit from the chairman’s role might give Premji more time with his Smith College educated, author-wife Yasmeen and grand children, Rohaan and Rhea. But considering that he lives on Wipro campus, he might not be too far away from the company in body or spirit.