Azim Premji on Brand Building

Azim Hashim Premji, born 24 July 1945 in Bombay, is the Indian billionaire businessman and philanthropist who led Wipro for decades as chairman before stepping into a non-executive board role as founding chairman. As of late 2023 Forbes put his net worth at roughly eleven point six billion dollars, with his reputation equally split between building Wipro and giving away most of it.

He founded the Azim Premji Foundation in 2001 to improve India's public school system in disadvantaged regions. The foundation is now the operational vehicle for nearly all his giving, deliberately structured as an operating organisation rather than a grant-making trust so it can deploy people on the ground in tandem with government.

In 2013 Premji became the first Indian to sign the Giving Pledge, the Buffett-Gates-led campaign encouraging the wealthy to give most of their wealth to philanthropic causes. He was only the third non-American after Richard Branson and David Sainsbury to join, signalling that Indian business wealth was beginning to plug into a global philanthropic infrastructure.

Premji has been honoured with the Padma Bhushan in 2005 and the Padma Vibhushan in 2011, France's Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur in 2018, EY's Lifetime Achievement Award in 2018, and an honorary doctorate from Wesleyan University in 2009 — a recognition arc that mirrors the rise of Wipro itself from a single-product family firm to a global IT services powerhouse.