Need for Dual CEO: After Vivek Paul, Wipros vice chairman left the company in 2005, Azim Premji became the CEO and continued to be the Chairman. Wipros IT business were functioning as different units and were headed by their President. Strategic decision making was under the purview of Azim Premji. He had hands on style of leadership and was involved in day to day operations of the company. He was becoming overburdened and as a result he was not able to focus on Wipros future course of action. Succession planning was always on his mind ever since Vivek Paul left. As he looked for solutions, the idea of co-CEO structure began to take shape. One of the board member who had experience in Unilever (Unilever followed co-CEO structure) suggested the idea of dual CEO which was later approved by board unanimously. Wipro is known for its strong home grown culture. The employees worked in cultural teams. They have a collaborative work culture which facilitate their responsiveness to market changes. It was this culture at Wipro which made Premji reluctant to hire a CEO from outside.The outsourced IT service industry was transforming. As a result Wipro had customers in almost 50 countries and they had grown into an 80,000 person entity. It was necessary for Wipro to integrate their domestic and global business. They needed to undertake leadership restructuring and re-grouping. Wipros size and complexity of operations was increasing and with co-CEOs they would be able to handle complex deals.

Fig: Factors involved in need for dual CEO

Restructuring would led to the following: Cross-leverage competencies by integrating domestic and global IT business Providing younger executives an opportunity to grow by giving them larger responsibilities Frees Premji to spend time on Wipros future course of action and on large clients

All these factors- Wipros culture, Global environment and Premjis leadership style led Wipro to opt for Dual CEO structure. Girish Paranjpe and Suresh Vaswani who had worked together for more than 10 years and had been Wipro for more 15 years were chosen as the joint CEO.