Uphill task ahead of new CEO at Wipro

Many top level executives have left the company in last one year. External people, who have been brought in, are not able to improve things. Morale is down and the company is constantly under-performing - Pareekh Jain, Founder, Pareekh Consulting, tells Bizz Buzz

Bengaluru: Wipro’s appointment of Srinivas Pallia as the new MD & CEO of the company with sudden resignation of incumbent Thierry Delaporte has not surprised many in the industry. Many industry analysts and sources in the know said that series of top level exits last year, continuing underperformance of the company versus peers and poor performance of big bets under Delaporte have triggered discontent among the board members, leading to his exit.

By choosing an internal candidate with multi-decade experience in the company, the board has sent a message that stabilisation of operations remains the key focus area given the low morale of leadership team.

“Many top level executives have left the company in last one year. External people, who have been brought in, are not able to improve things. Morale is down and the company is constantly under-performing. So, through the appointment of Srinivas Pallia as the new MD & CEO, the company wants to stabilize the ship,” Pareekh Jain, an IT outsourcing advisor & Founder of Pareekh Consulting, told Bizz Buzz.

Late Saturday (April 6), Wipro in a regulatory filing informed stock exchanges that Thierry Delaporte has resigned from his position and Srinivas Pallia will succeed him as Wipro’s new MD and CEO. Pallia, who was the CEO for the company’s America region, took over as the new CEO and MD on April 7, 2024, for a period of five years.

“The swiftness of new CEO taking over shows that the board was not happy with the direction of the company,” said a source.

Delaporte, who was the first expat CEO of Wipro and was appointed in July 2020, had brought in significant changes in the operating model of the company. Under his leadership, the company’s operations were organised based on geography. He also tried to build the consulting business of Wipro with a big ticket buy of Capco for $1.45 billion in 2021. He also tried to shake up the leadership structure with many new appointments.

Despite all his initiatives, the company lagged behind in revenue growth rate as compared to its peers after the pandemic-led demand waned.

Moreover, around dozen top level leaders exited the IT major in 2023 alone. Prominent among those included chief growth officer Stephanie Trautman, chief financial officer Jatin Dalal, Chief Operations Officer Sanjeev Singh, Americas 2 CFO Nithin V Jaganmohan, and others. The company also didn’t find much positive results in the large deal space despite building a large deal team, which was eventually disbanded.

“Post pandemic, the demand has gone down and the company has not been able to navigate the new environment effectively so far. At a time, Generative AI-related technologies are all set to disrupt the IT industry, Wipro is trying to prop up growth through leadership change,” Jain of Pareekh Consulting said.