Vivek Paul

Vivek Paul (born 1958)^[2] is an Indian-American business executive and entrepreneur. He served as the vice-chairman of Wipro and CEO of its flagship business, Wipro Technologies. He also worked as a senior executive at General Electric, private equity investor at TPG, and a strategy consultant at Bain.^[1] He is also the founder of KineticGlue, a tech startup that was successfully sold to BMC. He has served on several boards, including the California Chamber of Commerce, Electronic Arts, and on the advisory council of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.^[3][4]

Vivek Paul was born in a Brahmin family in Bombay, India.^[5] He did schooling in St. Columba's School, New Delhi.^[1] He received Bachelor of Engineering degree from BITS Pilani and MBA from University of Massachusetts Amherst.^[6][1]

Paul began his business career at PepsiCo.^[7]

In 1990, Paul was part of the founding team of WiproGE Medical Systems. He became its CEO in 1993.^[4][1] The joint venture started as a sales and service arm, went on to manufacturing, and then design and build of medical equipment, becoming India's largest exporter of high value electronics goods.^[8] Paul was then asked to lead GE's worldwide CT scanner business.^[5][9][1] Paul reorganized operations across its China, Japan and US operations, and launched GE as the first major multi-detector CT provider.^{[citation needed]} The work in complex product development became a foundation of "Design For Six Sigma".^{[citation needed]}. In one of the books about Jack Welch, Paul was cited as among the top five All Star CEOs from GE.

In 1999, Paul was asked to become vice chairman of Wipro and CEO of its outsourcing unit. Wipro was a $150-million company when Vivek Paul took over, and it had all the tendencies of a small, traditional company. Paul has been credited with creating a global business and for much of Wipro's growth into a multibillion-dollar company.^[10] On 19 October 2000, Wipro was listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Paul was recognized as among the top 6 managers in the world by Jack Welch in one of his books, as well as by several business magazines.

In June 2005, Paul joined private equity firm, TPG Capital, as an investing partner spanning various fund classes, from buyout to Asia to venture capital. He went on to be a founding partner of TPG Growth, a fund focused on growth capital for midsize companies.^[11] He resigned from TPG in December 2008.

Founded KineticGlue, a cloud-based enterprise social media application in 2008.^[12] Sold company to BMC in 2013.

Paul co-founded the Microbiome Alliance at Stanford, and was the driving force behind the first Microbiome Symposium at Stanford in 2014. The sixth annual Stanford Microbiome Symposium will be held in September 2021. Paul also co-chaired the Biodesign program of 2014–2015.

Paul served on the board of Electronic Arts from 2005 to 2019, and was chair of its CEO selection committee in 2013.

Paul has served on the advisory council of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, on the board of the California Chamber of Commerce, on the board of the U.S.-India Business Council, and on the Senate of BITS Pilani.^[1]

• Ranked among the best managers in the world by BusinessWeek in 2003.^[13]
• Among the top global business influentials by Time magazine in 2004.^[14]
• Among the top 30 most respected global CEOs by Barron's in 2005.^[15]