Wipro's Premji among world's 30 all-time great entrepreneurs

03 July 2007

Mumbai: Wipro''s Azim Premji and Bangladesh`s micro-credit pioneer, Nobel laureate Mohammad Yusuf are among the all-time great 30 entrepreneurs identified by the US-based Business Week.

They report places them in the same league as Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Benjamin Franklin, and modern day greats like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Michael Dell.

The list includes:
Zheng He (1371-1433)
Benjamin Franklin (1706- 1790)
Mayer Amschel Rothschild (1744-1812)
John Jacob Astor (1763- 1848)
John D. Rockefeller (1839-1937)
Thomas Edison (1847-1931)
Milton Hershey (1857-1945)
W K Kellogg (1860-1951)
Joseph Horn (1861-1941)
Frank Hardart (1850-1918)
Henry Ford (1863-1947)
Ray Kroc (1902-1984)
Madam C J Walker (1867-1919)
Estee Lauder (1907-2004)
Ernest Gallo (1909-2007)
Thomas Watson Sr (1874-1956)
Thomas Watson Jr. (1914-1993)
Sam Walton (1918-1992)
Earl Graves (born 1935)
Andy Grove (1936)
Ralph Lauren (1939)
Martha Stewart (1941)
Steve Jobs (1955)
Jeff Bezos (1964)
Michael Dell (1965) and
Pierre Omidyar (1967)

Premji is cited Business Week for the way he turned Wipro''s struggling business that he inherited from his father at the age of 21 into a leading IT company in India and growing player in the global market, speaks volumes of his business acumen.

"He put a premium on quality and standards to build a reputation for Wipro that would reassure western companies hesitant to move services overseas, a move that helped him land clients like General Electric. Premji is also a hands-on manager involved in day-to-day operations, even making sales calls himself," it says.

Premji, the magazine notes, built a leading IT company as the industry was growing and he expanded into the global market by adhering to rigorous standards.