Azim Premji

Azim Hashim Premji (born 24 July 1945) is an Indian businessman and philanthropist, born in Bombay (now Mumbai) into a Muslim family. In 1966, aged twenty-one, he took over the vegetable-oil company his father had founded and transformed it over decades into Wipro, one of the world's largest information-technology services companies, earning the title "Czar of the Indian IT industry". In 2001 he founded the education-focused Azim Premji Foundation and transferred a large share of his wealth to it — some US$21 billion in total giving — topping India's philanthropy lists. ^{1 2}

Premji was born in Bombay in 1945. His father, Mohamed Hasham Premji, was a wealthy merchant known as the "Rice King of Burma" who in 1945 founded Western India Vegetable Products Ltd at Amalner, maker of Sunflower vanaspati ghee and "787" soap. When Muhammad Ali Jinnah invited his father to relocate to Pakistan at Partition, the Premjis — a Muslim family — refused and chose to remain in India. ^{1 2}

Premji studied electrical engineering at Stanford University, but his father died suddenly in 1966; postponing his graduation, he returned to India and, aged twenty-one, took charge of the family company. ^{2 1}

The young Premji diversified the company into bakery fats, toiletries, hair-care soaps, baby toiletries, lighting and hydraulic cylinders, and renamed it Wipro in 1977. After IBM's exit from India, Wipro entered information technology in 1980 with minicomputers and later software services, growing into one of the world's largest technology-services firms with revenues above US$10 billion. In 2006 he set up PremjiInvest, the family investment office. He remained Wipro's chairman until his son Rishad Premji became executive chairman in July 2019; Azim Premji continues as a non-executive director and founder chairman. ^{1 2}

In 2001 Premji founded the Azim Premji Foundation, an education organisation working to improve India's public school system, and he is chancellor of Azim Premji University in Bangalore, founded in 2010. In December 2010 he pledged 213 million Wipro shares (8.7%), worth about US$2 billion, to the foundation. In 2013 he signed the Giving Pledge — the first Indian to do so, and the third non-American after Richard Branson and David Sainsbury — transferring a further 12% of his shares; in July 2015 he gave another 18%, bringing his total given to 39%; and in March 2019 he committed an additional 34%, bringing his total giving to roughly US$21 billion and making him India's leading philanthropist. ¹

He has repeatedly topped the EdelGive Hurun India Philanthropy List, and his foundation and Wipro made major COVID-19 commitments, including ₹1,125 crore in April 2020 and a further ₹1,000 crore in June 2021. ¹

His father Mohamed Hasham Premji founded the original company; his son Rishad took over Wipro's executive chairmanship in 2019, his other son Tariq works with the foundation's endeavours, and his wife is Yasmeen. The museum does not yet hold separate records for these people, so they are named here in the text without links; Bombay/Mumbai and Bangalore likewise have no place records yet, so no place relations are recorded for this person. ^{1 2}

This section sets out different positions as reported in the sources. It is not a verdict by the museum.

From 2020, an NGO called India Awake for Transparency pursued a series of lawsuits against Premji and related entities; the Karnataka High Court described the cases as "frivolous", dismissed them and jailed two of the complainants for contempt, and the Supreme Court closed the matters in March 2022 after an unconditional apology. In 2024 the Allahabad High Court quashed another related case, noting he had no direct role in it. In September 2025 he declined a Karnataka government request to open part of Wipro's Sarjapur campus — a private special economic zone — to ease traffic congestion, citing legal and governance constraints, and instead offered to fund an expert-led study. ¹

Premji is married to Yasmeen and has two sons, Rishad and Tariq. English Wikipedia records that he was born into a Gujarati Shia Nizari Isma'ili Khoja Muslim family, while Britannica describes his family only as "a Muslim family", and Arabic Wikipedia's infobox gives his religion simply as Islam. Because family background is not a personal attestation and no second source names his own school, the museum records his faith as unknown, following its rule. ^{1 2 3}

Premji received the Padma Bhushan in 2005 and the Padma Vibhushan in 2011, and was made a Chevalier of the French Légion d'Honneur in 2018. Time magazine included him in the TIME 100 in 2004 and 2011; Forbes listed him as India's richest man from 1999 to 2005, and estimated his net worth at about US$11.6 billion in October 2023. He appears regularly in "The 500 Most Influential Muslims". ^{1 3}

• The defined source entities cited above, recorded in data/source/.
• Revisions of this article must be dated, and must name the source that changed each fact.