Azim Premji

Azim Hashim Premji was born in Bombay (now Mumbai), India on 24th July 1945 to businessman M.H.Premji. He came from a Shia-Muslim family. His father was the owner of Wipro Ltd, at that time Western India Products, a vegetable fat manufacturer.

As a child, Premji went to St Mary's School in Mumbai, and went on to start an engineering degree at the world renowned Stanford University in California, USA. At age 21, his father sadly passed away and he returned from the States to take over his father's business.

Thirty years after returning to India to take over the family business, Azim Premji completed his engineering degree.

He is married to Yasmeen Premji, and together they have 2 sons, Rishad and Tariq Premji. Rishad is now the Chief Strategy Officer of IT Business for his father's company.

Under Premji's management, Wipro Ltd expanded and progressed to new heights, and the business began developing to manufacture other products. This included light bulbs with GE, and later personal care consumables such as soap and baby care.

His vision was different to others, and he used eye-catching packaging to entice his consumer audience, pushing his inherited company ahead of the competition and used other intelligent tactics such as cutting out the middle man to further boost the company's profits.

It was very clear at this time that he was extremely business minded, as instead of employing family members in his business, he opted for graduates in management and engineering as he knew this would ensure the success of his company.

In 1975, he founded Wipro Fluid Power, a manufacturer of hydraulics and truck tippers. But his thirst for success drove him to continue his search for a niche.

In 1979, when IBM were left without permission to continue business in India, he saw an opportunity and turned his attention to the computer industry. Very soon afterwards, his business became one of the world's leading computer producers.

This then led to software development, which to this day accounts for a huge proportion of Wipro Corporation's profits. The technology arm of the business now also expanded to manufacturing medical computer systems and office technology products worldwide.

Within a short period, the Wipro name grew to $662 million and is now worth much more. Wipro now has many branches including Wipro Products Ltd, Wipro Technologies and Wipro Corporation.

According to Forbes who produce the world billionaires list, he is India's second richest man with a fortune of $17 billion. In spite of his fortune, Premji has never let his success and fortunes go to his head. He is reported to stay in standard hotels and travel economy class.

In 2001, Premji contributed a significant amount of funding to initiate the set up of the Azim Premji Foundation which is a non profit organisation that focuses on improving education for children in India.


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