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Entrepreneur, investor, engineer and philanthropist Azim Premji is also a businessman. He serves as the founding chairman and non-executive board member of Wipro. Wipro earlier produced vegetable and refined oil in Amalner, Maharashtra’s Jalgaon district. Azim Premji, India’s richest tech entrepreneur, transformed it through diversification.
Set high goals and make achieving them your life’s purpose. The Czar of the Indian IT Industry believes innovation cannot happen by ignoring past lessons or context. Ideas-driven environments always produce differences of opinion. The same holds true in social situations. Let’s look at Azim Premji’s success story and what we can learn from it.
Azim Premji, India’s fourth richest man, expanded Wipro from a vegetable and refined oil producer in Amalner, Jalgaon district, Maharashtra into a global IT giant. The 69-year-old business magnate took charge at just 21 and has since shared career lessons with India’s youth.
Building a juggernaut the size of Wipro — valued at $19.4 billion today — demands the pursuit of perfection. Premji sets high standards for his leaders, employees, and himself. He believes certain qualities are essential for those seeking excellence. Confidence is one of them.
Azim Premji Biography
Azim Premji Early Life
Azim Premji was born into a Gujarati Muslim family in Bombay. He inherited his business mindset from his father, a successful businessman often called the Rice King of Burma. Pakistan’s founder Muhammad Ali Jinnah invited his father Mohammad Hashem Premji to Pakistan, but he declined the offer.
Premji pursued a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering at Stanford University. He married Mrs. Yasmin Premji, and the couple has two children, Rashid and Tariq. Today, Rishad Premji serves as Chief Strategy Officer of IT Business at Wipro.
Azim Premji’s success story
In 1945, Mohammad Hashim Premji founded Western Indian Products Limited, producing cooking oil under the brand Sunflower Vegeta and a soap called 787. After his father’s death in 1966, the Czar of the Indian IT Industry returned from Stanford and took charge of Wipro. At that time, Wipro dealt in hydrogenated oils. He later diversified the company into toiletries, bakery fats, lighting products, hydraulic cylinders, baby toiletries and hair care. In the 1980s, he spotted the IT sector’s bright future and entered technology by manufacturing minicomputers with American company Sentinel Computer Corporation — and the rest is history.
Azim Premji Net-Worth
Experts estimated Azim Premji’s net worth at 990 crore USD. By 2022, his company Wipro carried an estimated net worth of USD 42.96 billion dollars.
Social work by Azim Premji
Azim Premji said- “I strongly believe that those of us who are privileged to have wealth, should contribute significantly to try and create a better world for the millions who are much less privileged.”
Azim Premji launched the Azim Premji Foundation in 2001, dedicating it to promoting education in India. In 2010, he pledged $2 billion — one of India’s largest donations — to support the country’s education system. He then gave 34% of his Wipro shares to the foundation in 2019.
He endorsed “The Giving Pledge,” a movement Bill Gates and Warren Buffett started to encourage the world’s richest people to donate most of their wealth. By signing it, the Czar of the Indian IT Industry became the first Indian to join the pledge.
Known for his generosity, he announced in 2013 that he would give away half of his wealth. His Azim Premji Foundation works to provide free education to every child in India, investing around $2.2 billion so far toward this goal.
Entrepreneurial life lessons from Azim Premji
Know your strength
Awareness of one’s shortcomings matters, but so does awareness of one’s strengths. Azim Premji has lived by this philosophy, growing a $2 million hydrogenated cooking fat company into a $7 billion corporation with a presence in 60 countries. At a program co-organized by AIMA and the Bombay Management Association, he noted that appreciating our positive qualities is essential — because only our strengths allow us to correct our shortcomings.
Stay grounded
Every entrepreneur has the potential to succeed. Staying humble through that success is equally important. Premji has always advised young entrepreneurs to stay grounded, warning that success going to one’s head leads to failure. He also stresses that failure, like achievement, is a normal occurrence. Learning from it and moving forward is what defines a true entrepreneur.
Be a visionary
The 69-year-old philanthropist believes change is inevitable. He recommends that everyone build their own early warning system to prepare for changes ahead. Even when things go well, he stays forewarned.
Stick to your values
He believes that a person’s value system forms the core of business. The Czar of the Indian IT Industry repeatedly stresses sticking to one’s ideals, arguing that business success naturally follows. Standing firm in one’s beliefs without compromise builds resilience in the face of adversity — a quality many entrepreneurs deeply admire.
keep faith
Azim Premji has always stressed believing in one’s ideas, even when others call them impossible. That conviction drove him to diversify Wipro and transform it into a global IT behemoth.
You alone shape your destiny!
Countless reasons for failure exist — lack of effort, lack of education, and more. Yet where there’s a will, there’s a way. Life is full of challenges, but only you can shape your destiny. Consider the Czar of the Indian IT Industry: his father’s death forced him to leave Stanford at 21 to manage the family business. Rather than succumbing to uncertainty, he embraced his entrepreneurial spirit and built the Wipro empire.
Awards and Achievements of Azim Premji
The Government of India honored Azim Premji with the Padma Bhushan in 2005 and the Padma Vibhushan in 2011. Asia Week named him one of the top 20 most powerful people in the world in 2010. Time magazine twice included him in its list of the 100 most influential people in the world. In 2019, the Czar of the Indian IT Industry stepped down from Wipro’s board of directors. Through four decades of diversification, he made Wipro one of the top names in the software industry.
Wipro’s chairman and founder Azim Premji also earned the prestigious Yashwantrao Chavan National Award for his business and philanthropic contributions.
The simplicity of Azim Premji
Despite his enormous wealth, the Czar of the Indian IT Industry is renowned for his modesty and frugal ways;
He drives a Toyota Corolla
He flies economy class.
He prefers a company guest home over a five-star hotel.
A living legend among Indian businessmen, he inspires countless aspiring entrepreneurs. At 75, he continues working to create the third ecological era in Wipro’s history.
conclusion
One of the Czar of the Indian IT Industry’s most important legacies is his commitment to building a profitable business with genuine social value. Ultimately, success comes from striking the right balance — between job and life, income and social good, past lessons and future objectives, and differing points of view. That balance, in itself, is the greatest lesson. Make Azim Premji’s rules your own!
As of my last knowledge update in January 2022, no known familial relationship exists between Anil Ambani and Azim Premji. Anil Ambani is an Indian businessman and the younger son of the late Dhirubhai Ambani, the founder of Reliance Industries. He has pursued various business ventures, including telecommunications, infrastructure, and financial services.