Vivek Paul
Vivek Paul (born
1958), an alumnus of
BITS Pilani, and until recently the Vice Chairman of Wipro Limited and
CEO of
Wipro Technologies in
India, was declared among the best managers in the world by the
Business Week in
2004. He was also named by
Time and
CNN amongst the most influential business persons in the world. In 2005, he was named among the top 30 CEO's in the world by Barrons.
Paul joined Wipro in 1999 as Vice Chairman of the company and CEO of its global information technology, product engineering, and business process services segments. Paul grew this business from under $150m in revenue to over $1b in 6 years.He was the highest paid Indian Executive during this term.
Prior to this role, Paul was employed at GE for 10 years, where he was running GE's Global CT (Computerized Tomography) business, reporting directly to the current Chairman of GE.
Paul also served as President and CEO of GE's medical equipment joint venture in India. The joint venture was recognized by GE as among one of its best joint ventures in the world, and subsequently by the Economist as the best joint venture in
Asia. Paul set up local distribution (direct and indirect) and service networks, and built manufacturing and design capability, making the joint venture a leader in its served market, a global source for ultrasound for GE, and India's largest exporter of high value engineering goods.
Prior to working at GE, Paul worked at Bain & Co.,
Boston, and at PepsiCo Inc., Purchase,
NY. Paul received an MBA from the
University of Massachusetts and a
Bachelor of Engineering degree from BITS, Pilani, where he was also captain of its swim and water-polo teams. He went to the prestigious
St. Columba's School in New Delhi.
Paul is a member of the Board of the
California Chamber of Commerce. He is a member of the Senate of the B.I.T.S , and on the advisory board of
Stanford's Radiology Department. Paul helped launch the US India Business Council and Young Presidents Organization chapters in
Bangalore and served on the board of the local chapter of Junior Achievement in
Wisconsin.
Recently, Paul left Wipro and joined as a partner in the Texas Pacific Group. It is perceived that he left due to differences with the Chairman of Wipro
Padma Bhushan Azim Premji. Paul was noticed saying on
NDTV that he was not given enough credit for turning around Wipro from a $150m company to over $1b company. He is currently working with Texas Pacific Group's