Three independent directors resign from Wipro board

Bangalore: Wipro Ltd independent director Henning Kagermann has resigned from the company’s board to comply with regulatory requirements in Germany, while two other directors have decided not to seek re-election.

B.C. Prabhakar and Shyam Saran, who joined the board of India’s third-largest software services firm in 1997 and 2010 respectively, will cease to be board members at Wipro, effective 23 July, Wipro said in a statement on Thursday.

Other independent directors at Wipro include former Hewlett-Packard Co. executive Vyomesh Joshi, former Hindustan Unilever Ltd vice-chairman M.K. Sharma, nominations committee members Ashok Ganguly, William Arthur Owens and Narayanan Vaghul, Emory University professor Jagdish Sheth and Ireena Vittal—the sole woman board member at Wipro.

All the above mentioned board members will be re-appointed as independent directors at the company’s annual shareholder meeting on 23 July.

The resignation of Kagermann, who is a German resident, will be effective from 30 June. Financial regulations in Germany stipulate that a person cannot be on the boards of more than four companies at a given time, if he or she is already on the supervisory board of a financial institution in Germany.

Kagermann is currently a supervisory board member at a number of German companies such as Deutsche Bank AG, Munich Re, BMW Group as well as Finnish phone firm Nokia Oyj. He first became a board member at Wipro in October 2009.

Wipro did not specify any replacements for these board members.

Wipro Technologies (Wipro Ltd)