Wipro on Friday announced Capgemini Group veteran Thierry Delaporte will be its new chief executive officer and managing director from July 6.

He will succeed Abidali Z. Neemuchwala, who decided to step down in January. Neemuchwala, who had joined Wipro in April 2015 from Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), will leave as CEO and MD from next month.

Wipro said chairman Rishad Premji will oversee the day-to-day operations until July 5.

Wipro’s rival Infosys had also brought in a former Capgemini executive, Salil Parekh, to head the company.

Delaporte was the chief operating officer of the Capgemini group and a member of its group executive board. During his 25-year career with Capgemini, he was the CEO of the global financial services strategic business unit and head of all global service lines.

He also looked over the affairs of Capgemini’s India operations, conceptualising and driving several strategic programmes across various business units.

“I am delighted to welcome Thierry as CEO and managing director of the company. Thierry has an exceptional leadership track record, strong international exposure, deep strategic expertise,a unique ability to forge long-standing client relationships, and proven experience of driving transformation and managing technological disruption. We believe that Thierry is the right person to lead Wipro in its next phase of growth,' Rishad Premji said.

Shares of Wipro surged almost 7 per cent after the announcement. On the BSE, the scrip settled at Rs 212.55 - a gain of 6.65 per cent, or Rs 13.25, over the last close.

“I look forward to working closely with Rishad, the board, senior leadership and the hugely talented employees of Wipro to turn a new chapter of growth and build a better tomorrow for all our stakeholders,” Delaporte said.

Delaporte will be based in Paris and report to Rishad.

His appointment comes at a time various industries have been affected by Covid-19. The pandemic has forced domestic IT companies to get almost all of their staff to work from home and companies such as Wipro have refrained from giving a revenue growth outlook for the year.

Wipro also announced the appointment of Deepak M Satwalekar to its board of directors for five years effective July 1, subject to the approval of the shareholders.

Satwalekar was earlier the managing director of HDFC Ltd and the MD and CEO of HDFC Standard Life Insurance Company.