Vivek Paul, the former high profile vice-chairman of IT major Wipro has admitted to differences with chairman Azim Premji, but said that was not the reason why he quit the company.
"Any two individuals are bound to disagree. We had a process in place where we settled disagreements...(but) it was more a matter of what I wanted to do next...It is beyond all the pettiness..." Paul said in an interview in the latest issue of 'The Week' magazine.
Paul, who has joined global private equity firm Texas Pacific Group, however, refused to link his resignation from Wipro to differences with Premji, saying, "I was the vice chairman of the company -- a position that can not be exited just because you are in a bad mood."
Stating that the exit was not abrupt, he said the company had achieved the target of making Wipro was one of the top 10 global IT companies in terms of profitability, market capitalisation and brand equity by 2004-end.
"We were lagging behind only in revenues. We had pretty much achieved the objective," Paul said.
The 46-year-old Paul said, "There was a sense of satisfaction. I was feeling little uneasy as I wanted to do other things as well...and had set a deadline to move out of Wipro before the AGM in July".
Paul, who had moved from GE to Wipro six years ago, said he would be looking for companies that have the ideas and are looking for capital on a global basis.
"We are going to be using global capital to invest in India. Since hot investment areas will be overvalued, we are looking at areas where we can add value", he said, adding in India there were opportunities in life sciences, cosmetics, retail and telecom.
