Wipro’s senior executive in America quits

Guha was directly responsible for the largest share of business at the company: Americas 2 Strategic Market Unit accounted for 31.3% of Wipro’s $2.8 billion in revenue in the July-September period.

Wipro Ltd has appointed Suzanne Dann as the successor to Guha, according to an executive privy to the development. Dann joined Wipro in April last year.

At Wipro, Guha was the Chief Executive Officer of the Americas 2 Strategic Market Unit, and managing the business from customers in banking and financial services, manufacturing and Hi-Tech space, and energy and utilities space.

Mint independently could not ascertain the reason behind the departure of Guha, who spent nearly three decades at Wipro. He was also a member of the eleven-member Executive Board, the highest decision-making body at the Bengaluru-based company.

Guha’s departure is the latest blow to chief executive Thierry Delaporte who is struggling to build a stable leadership team amid concerns about sputtering growth and declining profitability.

At least four senior executives overseeing business in four countries left Wipro, Mint reported in its edition dated 20 September.

Douglas Silva, who was entrusted in January last year to oversee business in Brazil, and Tomoaki Takeuchi, who joined as head of business for Japan in February last year, left Wipro last week. Sarah Adam-Gedge, who took over as managing director of Australia and New Zealand in April last year, has moved out too. Wipro’s head of business for the Middle East region, Mohammed Areff, who joined in September last year, has also left.

The four senior executive departures follow a company-wide restructuring, under which at least a third of the 750 executives at the rank of general manager and above were asked to leave in the last two years, Mint reported last month.

Delaporte, who took over as chief executive in July 2020, brought in several executives from outside the company to shake things up and revive growth.

It started well. Wipro reported a 27.3% growth to end FY22 with $10.35 billion in revenue.

But after a weak performance in the first half of the current financial year, Wipro will find it challenging to grow in double digits in the current financial year, according to this Mint piece.

Wipro posted weak second-quarter earnings on Wednesday, as both revenue and profitability missed analysts’ estimates.

“Wipro confirms the appointment of Suzanne Dann as the new CEO of the Americas 2 Strategic Market Unit,” said a spokesperson for Wipro. “Suzanne also joins Wipro’s Executive Board. She started out with Wipro in April 2021 to lead the company’s Capital Markets and Insurance business in the US. Suzanne takes over from Angan Guha, who has decided to pursue a new opportunity outside the organization”

Shares of Wipro ended 6.95% down on the National Stock Exchange on Thursday even as NSE 50 ended largely unchanged. Wipro’s shares are down 47.2% as against a 3.5% correction in NSE 50 between 1 January and 13 October.