Will CEO-designate Thierry Delaport help Wipro regain its mojo?

After Neemuchwala resigned from the CEO post, India's fourth-largest company, by way of revenue,  was left facing uncertainty with questions being raised as to whether the firm could smoothly handle another management change.

Industry experts seem to have given a thumbs up to the appointment of Delaporte. Experts believe Delaporte would be a good fit to complement Wipro’s aspiration to get back to industry-matching growth, a goal set two years ago but hasn’t been met yet.

Delaporte joined Capgemini Group in 1995 while working for its subsidiary Sogeti as an internal auditor. Prior to that, he worked as an external auditor with France-based accounting firm Arthur Andersen & Co. Over his 25 years at Capgemini, he rose to hold several top posts.

In 1998, he became the CFO of the Switzerland business of the group and in the year 2000, he was made the CFO of the Asia Pacific region. Till 2009, he had donned the CFO hat of various geographies in the Capgemini group including Australia, New Zealand, Spain, Portugal, and North America.

It was under him that Capgemini's North America business scaled up between 2005 and 2008. In 2009 he was appointed as the CFO of global outsourcing.

Further, he went on to lead various verticals like application services, global business units, and even set up the entire business footprint in Latin America.

Both Parekh and Delaporte have held top positions at Capgemini and were closely associated during their tenure at the company. The two worked together handling the financial services unit and the group's Asia Pacific business and played a key role in together setting up the group's strategic business unit and transformation vision.

In 2018, when Parekh resigned as the COO of Capgemini to take charge as Infosys CEO, Delaporte took over his position. Recently, Delaporte was added to the executive board.

While Parekh was successful in restoring stability at Infosys, it will be interesting to see if his former colleague brings its rival Wipro back on track.

Delaporte brings a very diverse background to the table but more specifically, he has expertise in key areas that have a strong exposure for Wipro. These include financial services, global outsourcing, and geographies like North America, and European operation.

Delaporte led the business transformation for Capgemini which made him responsible for driving its strategy for the digital business. He also oversaw business operations in India, meaning he holds decent knowledge to strategize on the landscape and operations in the country.

“Thierry has seen the industry through all possible ups and downs -- from the global financial crisis to the dot com bust to Brexit. He has seen how to understand what a client needs and how to best deliver even in times of extreme pressure. At a time when Wipro is trying to get back to industry-matching growth rates and counter the impact of COVID 19, Thierry would be a good fit to steer the ship,” said a senior executive at Capgemini who has closely worked with Delaporte but did not want to be named.

In an interview with CNBC-TV18 in February 2019, Delaporte had said, “Companies will need our help as a consequence of what’s happening in the global environment. We really don’t see a slowdown in our key services like financial services, utilities, retail, or energy because. The market is a good one for us because we are investing and focusing on what matters the most for companies which are the transformation of their models leveraging new technologies.”