Wipro appoints Capgemini veteran as CEO

BENGALURU: After a four-month long search, Wipro has appointed former Capgemini COO Thierry Delaporte as its CEO. The 52-year-old Frenchman’s appointment immediately lifted hopes among investors in a company that has been growing at barely half the rate of its peers for several years now. The Wipro share price rose over 6% in the domestic market, and almost 10% in morning trade on NYSE.
Delaporte will be the first non-Indian to lead a major Indian IT company. Cognizant has had non-Indian EOs – including its first CEO and the current one – but it is a US headquartered company, though it is often described as an Indian-heritage firm on account of its India origins.
Coincidentally, both Wipro and Infosys now have Capgemini veterans leading it. Salil Parekh joined Infosys as CEO in 2018, after 17 years with Capgemini. Delaporte is a nearly 25-year Capgemini veteran, having joined the French IT services company just three years after completing a Masters in political science in Paris. He was in finance roles for a good part of his early career, and took on operational roles from 2013. He quit Capgemini in December last year, soon after the company announced that his colleague Aiman Ezzat, also then COO, would be the next CEO.