Wipro has heralded in major changes to its top management, in a bid to catch up with the IT industry's annual growth rates.

The country’s third largest software exporterhas appointed Abid Ali Neemuchwala, the former head of TCS BPO, as the group President and Chief Operating Officer of Wipro.

An alumnus of IIT Bombay, he will be heading 77 per cent of Wipro’s IT services business, which at the end of December quarter stood at $6.6 billion.

Reporting to Kurien He will be reporting to TK Kurien, CEO and Executive Board Member.

Further, company sources added that GK Prasanna, current chief executive of Global Infrastructure Services segment and Bhanumurthy BM, chief executive of application services and strategic alliances, have both been promoted as Presidents.

Both will report to Neemuchwala, who will also be in charge of BPO, advanced technology solutions and geographies such as Continental Europe, Africa, and Latin America.

The company has moved into this structure that is similar to its rival Infosys, which last year appointed UB Pravin Rao as COO with Vishal Sikka at the helm. Industry watchers like Santhosh Babu, founder of Organisation Development Alternatives, a top management coaching firm, believe that the appointment of a COO is in line with a company’s vision of streamlining its management structure in such a way that the CEO focuses more on the future roadmap of the company instead of constantly looking over the shoulder day-to-day issues.

Before the appointment of Neemuchwala, all business heads were directly reporting to Kurien.

However, some of the vertical heads such as Anand Padmanabhan, who is in charge of energy and utilities, Sangita Singh, head of healthcare and lifesciences, are amongst the seven business units that will continue to report to Kurien.

rajesh.kurup@thehindu.co.in

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