Call it a Jio wave or the magic of the business juggernaut, Mukesh Ambani has risen on top of the Forbes magazine list of Global Game Changers. The Reliance Industries (RIL) Chairman is the topmost among its Global Game Changers who has transformed industries and brought about changing trends in the lives of billions around the world. Among the 25 named by Forbes in their second edition of the Global Game Changers list, Ambani stands tall. And rightly so. This American magazine has referred to the after effects of the Ambani-led Reliance Jio mobile network’s efforts to spread internet penetration in India. Known for his oil and gas business, Reliance’s entry into the internet has created waves as it has garnered millions of customers in just six months and has sounded a warning in the telecom market, sending competitors scrambling.
While many of the corporate world have been hitting headlines for their profits, Reliance is catching the true movers and shakers in the business world, tapping customers who would be determining the course of the future for more than just their own shareholders or employees, and make the big difference in the corporate world. And more importantly, these are elements which matter in re-imagining the facets of everyday life, from health to money transfers through digital means. Among the others who make it to the elite group (list) are home appliances company Dyson’s founder James Dyson, US investment management company Black-Rock co-founder Larry Fink, Saudi Arabia’s Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, social media platform Snap co-founder Evan Spiegel and Chinese ride-sharing giant Didi Chuxing founder Cheng Wei.
Amogh Deshmukh has been elevated to Managing Director in the Development Dimensions International (DDI), an HR consultancy firm. With nine years’ experience in the company, Deshmukh takes charge from Anu Zachariah, who has been holding the post since December 2014. Deshmukh’s primary focus will be on strengthening DDI’s overall strategic position and further building DDI’s competitive advantage in the talent management space in India. Deshmukh has ably contributed as a Sales Manager-national sales with Kelly Services. He has a master’s in marketing management from the Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies (JBIMS), Mumbai.
The Employers’ Federation of Southern India (EFSI), Telangana and Andhra Pradesh branch, Hyderabad, has appointed Amara Raja Group’s President-group HR and new business development, B Jaikrishna, as the new Chairman. This federation of employers focuses not only on promoting and protecting the interests of employers, but also people-related policies, legislations, employer-employee relations, and various other aspects of people and industry. Meanwhile, Harsha Kadam, CEO-HSIL Ltd-PPD (AGI Glaspac), was chosen as the Vice Chairman of EFSI. The other members of the new committee of EFSI-Telangana and AP consist of R V S Ramakrishna, Group President-Asiapac and MEA and M D Signode India Ltd; Dr M Appayya, Chairman, MPR Refractories Ltd, VV Krishna Reddy, MD, Sri Krishna Pharmaceuticals Ltd, M Srinivasa Rao, Executive Director, Thermal Systems (Hyd) Pvt. Ltd, Suhas Kumbhar, plant head-farms division, Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd, L Prabhakar, head-human resources, ITC Ltd-Agri Business Division and Ex-officio member G Krishna Prasad, Managing Director, Annapurna Bhaskari Group.
It has been over six months since Flipkart’s CEO, Kalyan Krishnamurthy, has moved ahead in the company as he takes charge as the Chief People Officer, and the entire HR team at the online retailer will now report directly to him. He takes up key portfolios of HR and finance under his purview. This move was initiatated after Nitin Seth, who was the Chief People Officer and the Chief Administrative Officer until 2016, was elevated as the Chief Operating Officer, at the same time when Krishnamurthy took over as the CEO. Additionally, Seth is responsible for heading Ekart, which is the logistics division of the company, customer experience, strategy-to-execution capabilities and corporate functions. There has been exodus in the company, due to some senior-level exits earlier this year.
Nitin Sansare, Vice President, Reliance, began his second innings with Tata Motors, this time as the compensation and benefits head, the same post he was holding with his former employer the last three years. An engineer-turned HR professional, he has been instrumental in various transformations at Reliance. He brought changes in compensation, reviewed policies to ensure relevance, dealt with expat and executive compensation and performance pay, and also established the Hay Job evaluation process. He had worked with Tata Motors as the head-rewards and organisation design, for close to six years. He began his career as a Senior Manager-industrial engineer, with Mahindra & Mahindra in 1995, where he stayed for over 11 years before moving to John Deere, as the senior lead engineer, manufacturing services. With over 20 years of experience, Sansare is an expert in manpower planning, compensation, rewards, benefits, performance management, designing employee-centric policies and industrial engineering. A graduate in production engineering from KIT’s College of Engineering, he did his masters in industrial engineering from the University of Mumbai, and did his postgraduation in human resources from XLRI Jamshedpur.
Saurabh Agrawal, from the Aditya Birla group becomes the second investment banker, as he joins as the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Tata Sons Ltd. The 48-year-old banker CFO is in the Chandrasekaran’s team after Ankur Verma from Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Agrawal, has been with the Aditya Birla group since April 2016, after his stint of having steered the biggest merger and acquisition transaction in the country, the merger of Idea Cellular Ltd with Vodafone Group Plc, a deal worth $23 billion. He has also been instrumental in pushing through UltraTech Cement Ltd’s acquisition of Jaiprakash Associate Ltd’s cement assets and also the restructuring of Grasim Ltd and Aditya Birla Nuvo Ltd. An investment banker for nearly two decades, Agrawal was previously regional head of corporate finance (South Asia) for Standard Chartered Bank. He is a chemical engineering graduate of the Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee, and has a post-graduate management degree from the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta.
Seema Nair takes charge of Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages as Executive Director, HR, spearheading the role in India, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Bangladesh. She stakes over from Gaurav Chaturvedi, who has moved to Coca-Cola Pinya Beverages as CEO. Chaturvedi is based out of Myanmar. In a bid to boost the presence in this beverages world, the company has made some changes in the company, which are around 13. Over 13 other senior executives at the company have been moved to regional roles outside India in the recent past. Sanket Ray is now CEO, Coca-Cola Beverages Vietnam while Mayank Arora is Managing Director, Coca-Cola Beverages Sri Lanka. Puneet Varshney is managing director, Bottlers Nepal the bottling partners of The Coca-Cola Company in Nepal, in what could be termed as a major shake-up. An alumnus of Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, Chaturvedi has been with the company from 2004 when he joined as Area General Manager. He was appointed as ED-HR in 2014 and prior to that he was zonal Vice President, Andhra Pradesh and as Director, operational excellence. On the other hand, Seema, postgraduation from XLRI in 1994. She has spent long years in Cisco, where she moved up the ranks from a Senior Manager HR to Director and CHRO for India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal. Prior to that, she worked with Intel Corporation, Microland Group and Crompton Greaves. Now this duo, will takeover the responsibility in the company, which is responsible for manufacturing, packaging, sale and distribution of beverages under the trademarks of The Coca-Cola Company. The Company owns and operates 23 factories. It also sources from and supports nine contract packers’ plants.
It’s end of the road for Chandrashekhar Mukherjee, Chief People Officer, National Stock Exchange of India (NSE), as he puts his papers. With over two decades of his role as HR chief, Mukherjee is set to take up a bigger mission after his last was June 5, 2017. He has been at the helm for corporate human resource function with NSE. A former VP and branch head of Bennett Coleman & Co, he has worked with Cabot India, Colgate-Palmolive India and Usha India to add to his profile. He has been responsible for a number of initiatives with NSE, making this sector (NSE) the best place to work in a financial sector. And it was during his time, NSE won the CII Business Excellence award on two occasions during his tenure. He has been the architect in designing and implementing in areas of talent management, learning and development with employees’ role in them. Besides, Mukherjee is responsible to introduce the capability index, flexibility index, training effectiveness model and a dual rating system for the annual PMS. A commerce graduate from the University of Allahabad, pursued his postgraduation in human resources from Institute of Engineering and Rural Technology.
Veteran banker, HN Sinor, who had decided to quit the Banks Board Bureau (BBB) after the government bypassed it in bank appointments, has decided to stay on. Following a detailed discussion with Vinod Rai, the Chairman of the Banks Board Bureau, Sinor has decided to re-engage with the activities of the bureau, with his usual fervour and vigour, according to a statement issued by the bureau.
Sujaya Banerjee, who has over 25 years of experience in leading change through people in organisations such as British Gas, Godrej and Lowe Lintas and Partners, has ventured into a personal venture, Capstone People Consulting. This venture is a change management consulting firm that aims to enable clients across diverse sectors drive change through leadership development, talent analytics, women leadership and technology adoption to build diverse and inclusive talent- savvy cultures. Sujaya, who has been on the boards of AGC Networks and The Mobile Store, is of the opinion that her venture will become the gold standard in managing change through people. Capstone offers proprietary solutions and approaches drawn from the thought leadership of its partners, validated in research and built on a repertoire of vast experience and success stories of its founders. Capstone partners with US analytics leader, Optimal Strategix to bring forth proprietary talent insights to manage unique employee experiences. The company has also partnered with HCM solutions provider, SAP-Success Factors, to provide technology integration, change management and adoption services through its Capstone Techsmart enterprise. This unique path-breaking initiative marries technology with behavioural sciences enabling technology within organisations to stick. It also brings the proprietary talent economist approach of PeopleLENS Singapore to enable leaders to develop the ‘economist talent mindset’ through its validated interventions. Sujaya is a recipient of several awards and accolades, the most prestigious being The Contribution to the HR Community Award from the Malaysian government. She also won the HR Director Award as part of the HR Brilliance Awards, UK. She is the author of Switch-How 12 Indian Companies Managed Change Success fully, which received the Indian Publishers’ Award for the Best Management Book.
Priya Agarwal, daughter of mining baron Anil Agarwal joins the Vedanta Ltd Board as an additional and non-executive director. In a statement issued by Vedanta it stated, “The board of directors approved the appointment of Aman Mehta as an additional director and non-executive independent director and Priya Agarwal as additional and non-executive director.” The offspring of NRI billionaire Anil Agarwal, the Chairman Emeritus of Vedanta Ltd and Chairman of Vedanta Resources, Priya graduated with BSc Psychology and Business Management from the University of Warwick in the UK. Priya has experience in public relations with Ogilvy & Mather, in human resources with Korn Ferry International, Vedanta Resources, HDFC Bank and in strategic planning with Rediffusion Y&R. Mehta, who has also been appointed on the board, is an economics graduate from Delhi University, has experience of three decades in various positions with the HSBC Group from where he retired in January 2004 as CEO Asia Pacific. He occupies himself largely with corporate governance, with board and advisory roles in a range of companies and institutions in India as well as overseas. He was earlier with ING Group NV, as a supervisory board member, and a director at Raffles Holdings, Singapore. He is also on the governing board of the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad, and a member of the International Advisory Board of Prudential of America.
With a view to boost business growth through efficient human resources, the agricultural and engineering equipment manufacturer, Escorts, has brought in Amanppreet Singh Bhatia as the new group HR head. Bhatia moves in from VE Commercial Vehicles Limited, a Volvo Group and Eicher Motors joint venture, where he was Executive Vice President HR. He joined VECV in 2009, and managed human capital management for all business areas of the company, where he was responsible for managing key HR parameters, along with driving operational excellence, ensuring a talent pipeline to support expansion, facilitating strategic talent management, supporting cultural transformation, facilitating performance-driven culture and managing people-cost. Bhatia, who completed his MBA in Personnel Management and Industrial Relations from University Business School, Punjab University, worked with Gillette India as HR business partner between 2002-2005. Between 2005 and 2009, he had two short stints, first at Symantec for a year and a half, and then at Intertek Group for close to three years.
By Joe Williams
