Mukesh Amani, Gautam Adani, Shiv Nadar, Cyrus Poonawalla are few of the names that have been constant in the list of richest Indians for the past few years. But when you look back, you’ll be able to notice the name of Azim Premji as constant in the richest Indians list for more than a decade. Often referred to as the most charitable man in India, Azim Premji took one of the biggest tech companies in India, Wipro, to new heights. Wipro’s current market cap stands at Rs 1,99,000 crore and Azim Premji has played a huge role to make the company this big. He took the lead of the company when he was just 21 years old. After leading the IT firm for around 53 years, Azim Premji handed over the reins of the multinational company to his son Rishad Premji, he steered the company during the COVID-19 pandemic.
A business major, Rishad Premji is often in the news for his management style and ethics. He was the one who began the big online discussion around moonlighting. Setting an example of a good leader, Rishad took a 50% pay cut earlier this year in response to employee variable pay reductions. He is serving as the executive chairman of Wipro and took a compensation of less than 8 crore ($951,353) in the financial year 2022-23. Even during the pandemic year 2019-20, he opted for a 31% pay cut.
Rishad joined Wipro, which has more than 250,000 employees in six continents, in 2007 and worked in several roles before becoming Executive Chairman in 2019. With An MBA from Harvard Business School and a B.A. in economics from Wesleyan University in the US, Rishad Premji served as a Chairman of NASSCOM for the financial year 2018-19. He is currently staying in Bangalore with his wife and two kids.
