Tata Consultancy Services’ former BPO head Abid Ali Neemuchwala may be heading to Wipro

BENGALURU: A top executive at Wipro held initial talks with Tata Consultancy Services’ former BPO head Abid Ali Neemuchwala a few weeks ago and discussed a possible senior role at the company, a person directly familiar with the discussions said. However, a specific role was not discussed at that point and ET could not immediately verify whether further such discussions were held between Neemuchwala and Wipro.

In an interview with ET last month, Wipro CEO TK Kurien said that the company was exploring the possibility of creating a COO position at the company freeing him up to focus on a longerterm strategic vision for Wipro. Media reports earlier on Thursday have indicated that Neemuchwala is a front-runner for the COO position at Wipro.

Neemuchwala had not responded to text messages at press time. “It’s important for us to create efficiency in the business and if that requires a COO structure, so be it. The answer is not that it won’t happen, the answer is if it’s so required, it will happen. But a decision has not been made yet,” Kurien had said in the interview. The company said talk of any such candidate was “speculative”.

“Wipro has already made public its intent to explore the possibility of appointing a chief operating officer but no decision has been taken in this respect,” said a Wipro spokesperson in an email response.