Wipro:  Will Ramit Sethi quit?
By Annie

Even though Wipro started as a business in 1945, it only launched its technology division in 1980. Since then, Wipro has become a major player in the global IT, BPO and KPO outsourcing industry. In India, it is No. 2 in the domestic IT Services market. Last year, it had revenues of US $6 Billion. Wipro has a workforce of 108,000 and 72 global delivery centers in 55 countries.

In an interesting move, Wipro BPO has shunted Senior Vice President, Wipro BPO and Head of KPO services, Ramit Sethi, into a non outsourcing related role. Ramit will probably focus on Energy and Green Initiatives within Wipro. This move comes as a shock especially since Ramit was responsible for majority of the large capital market BPO deals within Wipro which included UBS, Credit Suisse and Citibank. Collectively, the number of FTEs from these deals runs into thousands.

Ramit Sethi was hired by Wipro in 2006 to increase the thrust into capital markets BPOs and grow revenues. Ramit joined Wipro from Infosys BPO where he again headed their knowledge services. He was also a Vice President and member of their Executive Council. An industry veteran with two decades of experience, Ramit was previously with KPMG as a partner in their Corporate Finance practice in Delhi, and prior to that worked with Standard Chartered Bank for 13 years, across their India, Middle East and South Asia operations.

Sources close to the Wipro management inform Techgoss that all was not well between Ashutosh Vaidya – head of Wipro BPO and Ramit Sethi. It will be a major challenge for Ashutosh and his inner circle to manage the financial services part of the BPO business after Ramit’s ouster.

The grapevine is abuzz with talk that Ramit will probably tender his resignation and move to another company to pursue his dreams. Keep watching this space for more.

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