India\'s Answer to Bill Gates: Azim Premji

Azim Premji

Azim Hasham Premji was born in July, 1945, in Karachi, India.

In 1966, as he was a 21-year-old engineering student at Stanford University in California, when he learned that his father had passed away in India; he went back to India to attend his father's funeral (his father died at the age of 51) and discovered that his father had picked him to run the company (Ivaravl, 2010).

Some biographies say he abandoned his Stanford education to jump start his father's company, others say he graduated; for example, Gale Biography in Context (2012) claims he got a "bachelor's degree in arts and science"; The Gale Biography in Context (2003) reports that he interrupted his engineering studies "midway through his degree at Stanford" when his father died. Michigan State University (which invited him to speak to the graduating class in 2014), claims he is "a graduate in electrical engineering" from Stanford (States New Service, 2014).

The company his father had launched was Western India Vegetable Products (producing cooking oil); it was a business "in shambles," Ivaravl writes, but Premji had strong entrepreneurship in his blood because besides his father's knack for starting businesses, his grandfather had founded "one of the largest rice-trading businesses in India (Ivaravl).

The 21-year-old Premji dug in and began to diversify the company, moving it away from strictly producing vegetable oil and laundry soap into such products as shoes, baby products, light bulbs and toiletries; in time he began producing healthcare technology and person computers (Gale Biography in Context, 2003). '

Premji changed the name of his father's company to Western India Products (Wipro) in 1977, and by the year 2000 Wipro had become a "global leader in software solutions" and contracted with General Electric and Cisco to provide servers and routers. "He is an incredibly shrewd businessman" and specializes in outsourcing computer software with "an army of low-cost but highly skilled workers" (Gale Biography in Context, 2003).

His leadership style is based on values and ethics. He is a billionaire many times over and is one of the richest men in India albeit he drives an old car, flies business class, and stays in modest hotels (Gee, 2008). His Wipro company has 95,000 employees and "shaves expenses in thousands of ways, day in and day out" (Gee).

His foundation, the Azim Premji Foundation, has spent millions of dollars helping primary school education in India, "with a special emphasis on girls"; the company also provides disaster relief when there are emergencies in India (Gee). His foundation also provides funding for 1,700 NGOs (non-governmental organizations) in India.