Rishad Premji may get board seat on Wipro Enterprises

BANGALORE: Rishad Premji could join the board of Wipro Enterprises. Rishad, 35, is considered a logical choice for the newly-formed, unlisted entity which comprises the non-IT businesses of Wipro.

Rishad, the older son of promoter Azim Premji, is currently on the board of Wipro GE Medical Systems Limited, a joint venture with American conglomerate GE. At Wipro, he works as the chief strategy officer. Rishad is also in charge of mergers and acquisitions for India's third-largest software services exporter.

Wipro did not respond to an emailed query.

The non-IT businesses, including lighting, office-furniture, consumer care products, infrastructure engineering services, contribute about 14% of revenues and less than 10% of profits to the $7 billion (Rs 38,150 crore) sales of the combined entity.

In the 2012 financial year, consumer care & lighting had sales of about Rs 3,300 crore, while infrastructure engineering and medical product & services business together brought in Rs 1,900 crore.

On Friday, the demerger proposal announced two months ago, will be put before the shareholders in a court-convened meeting in Bangalore. The company had said at the time of announcement of the demerger that Azim Premji would be non-executive chairman of Wipro Enterprises.

Other potential board members include Wipro's global HR head Pratik Kumar who also runs the infrastructure engineering business as well as Vineet Agarwal, the head of consumer care and lighting business.