Wipro's Rishad Premji took over in 2019 and bought the company back to double-digit growth

Azim Premji, who transformed Wipro from a hydrogenated cooking-fat company into an $8.5 billion IT powerhouse over 53 years, retired as executive chairman on July 30, 2019. His son Rishad, 42, who had served as chief strategy officer, took over in a deliberately low-key handover, with Azim staying on the board as non-executive founder chairman.

Rishad inherited a problem: in FY2019 Wipro had grown just 5.4%, falling to fourth place among Indian IT services firms behind HCL Technologies. His mandate was to reverse the slowdown, and he immediately sharpened strategy around digital, cloud, engineering services and cybersecurity.

The decisive move came in March 2021, when Wipro agreed to buy London-based consultancy Capco for $1.45 billion in cash, its largest acquisition, to strengthen banking and financial-services technology. In FY22, Wipro reported $10.4 billion in revenue, up about 27% year on year — an industry-leading rebound under Rishad's chairmanship and CEO Thierry Delaporte.

Wipro returned to industry-leading growth: FY22 revenue of $10.4 billion, up about 27% year on year, after the $1.45 billion Capco acquisition.

Rishad had spent years at Wipro as CSO before the handover, so continuity was built in.

The FY2019 growth slump created a clear mandate to change course.

The Capco acquisition gave Wipro scale in a high-growth financial-services niche.

A groomed heir can take over without drama, then use bold M&A to fix a growth problem the founder could not.

The handover proved that Indian promoter families could pass power to the next generation without a public battle. Rishad kept his father's philanthropic foundation intact and led Wipro through the pandemic into the digital-services boom.