Wipro will always stand by principle of democracy, justice, equality: CEO amid Ukraine crisis

New Delhi: IT company Wipro on Friday said its employees are engaged in providing relief effort to people displaced due to the ongoing Ukraine-Russia conflict and the organisation will continue to stand by the principle of democracy, justice and equality.

At a briefing after the company announced its latest quarterly results, Wipro Managing Director and CEO Thierry Delaporte said that he has personally joined the relief efforts.

"We continue to do business responsibly, in particular the humanitarian crisis in Europe as had our attention.

"While we don't have any material exposure in the affected regions directly, many of our employees are in the neighbouring countries. I have personally joined relief efforts providing food and shelter for thousands of displaced people. Our employees in Romania are volunteering to manage a dedicated helpline to support those in need," Delaporte said.

He said the company has created an employee donation programme under which it matches the dollar contributed under the programme which is doubling the available funds.

"We've also partnered with Project Hope. They are an emergency response team and European partners are providing critical medical supplies and assistance to refugees. I can confirm that Wipro will always stand by the principle of democracy, justice and equality," Delaporte said.

When asked about the impact of the crisis on the company's operations, the Wipro CEO said the company neither has any operations in Russia nor in Ukraine.

"We have operations in neighbouring countries like Poland, Romania... From a business standpoint, it has no impact at all for us. It doesn't change at all our expansion in Europe. Our strategy, we are focusing on the same market and those markets are not impacted by the crisis," Delaporte said.

He also said there was no better country in terms of talent and potential than the Indian market for IT industry and it will continue for several years.

"There is no way it will change anytime soon but it cannot be the only country. Our clients expect us to have different options. Ukraine, Belarus, Russia were important markets, especially for software engineering and engineering world. At the moment, it's a terrible situation for this industry," Delaporte said.

According to him, it is important to look at the whole political environment to make sure that companies are able to adjust and shift talent from one place to another.

"That is why we need to have centres we do have, you know, very important centres outside of India, like the Philippines like you know, Romania to name a few and we will continue to develop these centres.

"You cannot be just focused on one single market. You know, our growth and the expectation of our clients require from us that we continue to expand in other places as well," Delaporte said.

On Friday, Wipro posted a 4 per cent increase in consolidated profit at Rs 3,092.5 crore in the fourth quarter ended March 2022.