Rishad Premji: Successor in waiting?

Rishad Premji, the oldest son of IT billionaire Azim Premji has been slowly gearing up to take charge of one of India’s largest software companies, Wipro. And in a first indication of his son’s future Premji, in an interview with Bloomberg TV recently said “it would make sense” for Rishad to eventually succeed him as non-executive chairman , although India’s third-wealthiest man, has no plans to step down at least for the next two years.

However, we decided to pull together some interesting ‘must-knows’ about Rishad Premji:

1. Having studied at the Harvard Business School, the London School of Economics and Wesleyan University in the US, the 34-year old Rishad joined Wipro in 2007 as a business manager and worked at the company’s banking and financial services division. In 2010, Rishad was elevated as the chief strategy officer.

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[caption id=“attachment_317046” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Rishad Premji has studied at the Harvard Business School, the London School of Economics and Wesleyan University in the US.”]  [/caption]

2. Rishad has worked in several capacities: he was part of the banking and financial services group, running the mortgage business and then went on to become an integration manager in the acquisition section. After that, he became an investor relations manager," which, according to him, was “one of the funnest jobs anyone can have”.

3. Joining Wipro was a personal decision and not his father’s influence. " I came to Wipro like any other employee. I was interviewed by Girish (Paranjpe) at that time, when he was in London. The way I approached it is like the way everyone approaches any new job. You evaluate the job; you evaluate the pros and cons of the job and then decide to join a company, with an objective to make an impact. It was important to me because I got accepted for what I brought to the table," he had said last year in an interview with the Business Standard.

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4. Rishad is married to his college sweetheart Aditi, who is a homemaker. The couple has two children Rhea and Rohaan.

5. Rishad relaxes with cricket and Hindi movies. He describes himself as reserved, but not shy, and Warren Buffett, whose values and philanthropy are akin to that of Azim Premji, is his role model.

6. While Senior Premji is passionate about trekking, hiking and the outdoors, Rishad’s obsession is said to be cricket - he both plays the game and follows it avidly. And his hero, is none other than Sachin Tendulkar. His hard work and humility are the reasons why he sees the cricket maestro as his big hero.

7. Within the vast company, neither father nor son is called by their last name, Premji. While Premji Senior goes by his initials “AHP”, the younger Premji is simply Rishad.