Wipro management structure rejigged

Wipro, the software-to-vanaspati maker, has effected key management changes to drive the company in the next phase of growth.

In keeping with its 'power of two' strategy, the company on Wednesday announced that Anurag Behar, chief executive of Wipro Infrastructure Engineering (WIL), would move to Azim Premji Foundation as co-CEO effective July 1, to help the foundation on its next phase of journey.

The foundation will be led jointly by Dileep Ranjekar and Anurag Behar as the co-CEOs. Both will be involved in setting up the Azim Premji University, significant coverage of districts across India with specialised resource centers, development of a large partner network and deepening of its existing programmes.

In a related development, Pratik Kumar, who holds the post of executive VP-HR, will additionally take over as president of Wipro Infrastructure Engineering (WIE), which includes the hydraulics and water businesses, with effect from July 1.

T K Kurien, president of Wipro's consulting, communication and media verticals, will also move on to take over as president of Wipro Eco-Energy (WEE), effective from April 1. The company said it was looking at clean energy as a significant area of growth and was investing to fuel the growth.

In their new roles, both Kurien and Kumar will directly report to Wipro chairman Azim Premji.

In June 2008, Premji toed the Drucker line of thought that two heads are better than one, when he appointed Suresh Vaswani and Girish Paranjpe as joint chief executive officers of Wipro Technologies, the company's global information technology arm. The flurry of changes came after the lull of three years that followed the exit of vice-chairman Vivek Paul in 2005.

"Today, the opportunities are endless and this structure provides us with 'the power of two'. It gives us dramatically greater breadth and depth to leverage all opportunities. This is not 1+1; it is the power of 2," reasoned Premji then.