T K Kurien the vice chairman of the $7.5 Billion IT firm Wipro is all set to leave the company after almost 2 decades of straddling different positions.
The announcement is expected to make by company at the third quarter results. When TOI contacted Wipro to confirm this news, there was no response from them till the date.
TK, as he is popularly called, served as Wipro CEO for five years before being elevated as its vice-chairman early last year. Kurien was to continue also as member of the board until March 31.Despite of working hard and being hard at task master, he failed to make growth in the company.
As Wipro invested more in oil & gas industry, their stocks shattered when the fuel prices dropped. Kurien couldn’t make it up with other sectors for their loss. This made Kurien restructure the company to deal with the crisis.
Bendor Samuels, CEO of outsourcing research firm Everest Group said “Previous Wipro CEOs had come up through the system, whereas TK had come up in other companies and was viewed as an outsider. One of the big challenges which TK inherited was that the other industry leaders had already made the changes to focus on industry, and TK was constantly playing catch up, having lost the first mover advantage that TCS and Cognizant gained. His focus on moving quickly, and impatience to catch up created a backlash in the Wipro culture which he had to constantly deal with.”
What’s TK is planning to do next is un-clear. He has invested in a few startups in the artificial intelligence (AI) space and in mobile payments startup ToneTag. He previously told that he had covered seven million air miles in his five years as CEO and lived out of a suitcase 220 days a year.
Lots of high level executives like TK, after moving out of their enterprises responsibilities are getting into the startup ecosystem. Not as an entrepreneur but as an investor and mentor. Kris Gopalakrishnan is one such example, who runs an accelerator program for Indian Startups. Hyderabad based Fashion Tech startup Fabulyst recently got enrolled into this program and they are being mentored as we are talking. Read Indian Business News.
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