Srinivas Pallia from New Jersey is appointed as the global CEO and MD of Wipro, a leading IT behemoth operating in 66 countries directly and indirectly. His taking over the role from Thierry Delaporte inflated the cohort of Indian-origin CEOs worldwide. The second quarter of 2024 has just started, and the world is surprised to see the third Indian-origin tech leader having ascended the hot seat in the C-suite of a conglomerate, after Dhivya Suryadevara and Sridhar Ramaswamy.
Wipro CEO Srinivas Pallia’s journey is similar to that of Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. Both the CEOs had started their journey in the same year 1992. Microsoft hired Nadella as a young engineer and Pallia joined Wipro as a product manager back then. Srinivas Pallia, a fresh graduate from the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in 1992, walked into Wipro headquarters, Bengaluru with his appointment letter, confidence, and ambitions but without knowing that he would lead the global enterprise and its more than 2,50,000 employees 32 years down the lane from then.
Satya Nadella’s career advice, “Don’t wait for your next job to do your best work”, holds true for Srinivas Pallia’s 32-year illustrious career spanning various leadership roles at Wipro, from India to America. His unwavering loyalty to Wipro, a surprise to Millennials and Gen Z, is reflective of what Satya Nadella said in an interview with CNBC, “Instead of viewing your current job as an obstacle to achieving your career goals, look at it as an opportunity to demonstrate your enthusiasm and commitment to work, as well as your willingness to learn.”
Srinivas Pallia held eight leadership roles and left an imprint of his singularity in each role before he took the reins of Wipro as its CEO and MD. His “strong track record of leadership through some of the most significant technological shifts the industry has seen” culminated at the topmost echelon of the company. In his new role, he will continue to be posted in New Jersey where he was serving as the CEO of Americas 1, one of Wipro’s four strategic market units. Prior to New Jersey, he spent 8 years in Minneapolis as the General Manager of Central Operations and then as the Vice President of Enterprise Business in the US.
In 2008, Business Today magazine featured Mr Pallia among India’s 25 Hottest Young Business Executives. He is a fitness freak. A pair of running shoes is the one of the few things that he packs into his bag whenever he books business flights to India and other destinations. “I have got to get my daily dose of exercise and I have been known to go for a workout as late as 11 pm,” he told Business Today.
A member of the Wipro Executive Board, Srinivas Pallia believes that upskilling is a stepping stone to every milestone in life. When ‘upskilling’ was in not anyone’s dictionary, he added an advanced leadership program certificate from Canada’s McGill University to his portfolio in 2006. He pursued a global business, strategy and leadership program from Harvard Business School in 2019.
Mr. Pallia, an avid hiker who loves challenges, wore the hat of CEO when Wipro is having a bumpy ride across leadership transition, senior-level talent attrition, low employee morale, business underperformance, inflationary pressures, economic uncertainty in certain geographies, etc., according to industry analysts. As he assumed office as MD and CEO of Wipro, he has immediately been tasked with energizing the workforce, regaining stakeholders’ confidence, aligning their goals to the company’s mission & vision, boosting revenues, and likes.
