After the second wave of COVID subsided, leadership announcements took up. In this note, we highlight some of the major HR Movements announced during the month of June 2021.
Swiss Re appointed Cathy Desquesses as CHRO
Swiss Re appointed Cathy Desquesses as Chief Human Resources Officer, effective June 1, 2021. Prior to this, she was associated with Talentsoft as a Board Member. She is a champion for diversity, employee engagement, leadership development, and operational excellence. Cathy holds over 23 years of experience in Human Resources, earlier she has been Sodaxo’s Chief People Officer and a member of the Executive Committee for almost 3 years.
Cathy joined Sodexo from General Electric (GE), where she built a successful 20-year career in Human Resources as Global HR Leader, she also held senior HR roles at GE Corporate, GE Power, GE Capital, and GE Oil & Gas, as well as at their global head office, working in France, the United States, and Italy.
Tata Group appointed Anand Shankar as SVP – Group HR
Tata Group appointed Anand Shankar as Senior Vice President – Group Human Resources & Director TMTC (Tata Management Training Center) Tata Tomorrow University, effective from June 1, 2021. Anand has over three decades of experience in human resources, before joining Tata Group, he was working as a Senior Partner and Leader of the HR Transformation at Deloitte for three years.
Earlier to that, Anand was the Chief Commercial Officer for Aon Consulting and then subsequently Aon Hewitt for over 8 years. Anand was based in Singapore for over 20 years before moving back to India to start his assignment at Deloitte. Previously, he has worked in the Taj Group of Hotels, Littelwoods PLC UK, Hewitt Associates and Talent2 International in a career spanning almost 2 decades.
Syngene International elevated Sanjeev Sukumaran elevated as CHRO
Syngene International, integrated contract research, development, and manufacturing organization announced the elevation of Sanjeev Sukumaran as Chief Human Resource Officer, effective from June 2021.
Sanjeev joined Syngene International in October 2019 as Chief of Staff and was responsible for driving key strategic initiatives across the organization. Before joining Syngene, he held multiple senior-level positions at Thomson Reuters. He was also the former CEO of Force Fulcrum Solutions Pvt. Ltd.
Zomato elevated Akriti Chopra as Co-Founder and Chief People Officer
Online food ordering platform Zomato elevated Akriti Chopra as Co-Founder and Chief People Officer. Akriti started her stint at Zomato in 2011 as a Senior Manager of Finance and Operations and had established and scaled business finance functions across all verticals. Akriti is now the Co-Founder and Chief People Officer at Zomato.
Prior to joining Zomato, Akriti worked with PwC for 3 years in the Tax & Regulatory practice. She is a Chartered Accountant and graduated from Lady Shri Ram College for Women, New Delhi with a B.Com (Hons) degree. Zomato is an Indian multinational restaurant aggregator and food delivery company founded by Pankaj Chaddah and Deepinder Goyal in 2008.
Ashok Leyland elevated Amanpreet Singh as Head and President – HR
Ashok Leyland announced the appointment of Amanpreet Singh as Head and President of Human Resources. Before this, he was working with Hinduja Group as its Vice President -Group Human Resources. Amanpreet has been with the Hinduja Group in Mumbai since December 2019 and has been working closely with the Group Head-HR.
He has three decades of experience in the entire gamut of HR, handling leadership / strategic roles in multinational organizations and reputed Indian corporates across diverse industries spanning from Manufacturing, Engineering/ Automobile, FMCG, IT, and Services. Prior to joining Hinduja Group, Amanpreet worked with companies like Escorts, VE Commercial Vehicle, Intertek Group, Symantec, and Gillette India in leadership roles.
GroupM elevated Madhvi Pahwa as Chief People Officer for South Asia
GroupM, WPP’s media investment group, elevated Madhvi Pahwa as its new Chief People Officer for South Asia. Previously, she was Chief People Officer at Mindshare Apac prior. Madhvi replaces Rohit Suri who is moving on to explore other opportunities. In her new role, Pahwa will report to Prasanth Kumar, CEO, GroupM South Asia.
GroupM is the world’s leading media investment company responsible for more than $60B in annual media investment through agencies Mindshare, MediaCom, Wavemaker, Essence, and m/SIX, as well as the outcomes-driven programmatic audience company, Xaxis.
GE Power elevated Pramath Nath as Chief Human Resources Officer
General Electric (GE) Power elevated Pramath Nath as Chief Human Resources Officer – Asia Pacific & Japan, Steam Power. In his most recent role, he was HR & CSR Leader – South Asia, Steam Power since December 2019. Prior to joining General Electric, he was Executive Director – Human Resources leading the function for the Advisory Practice at KPMG India. He joined KPMG India as Director – HR and later took the role of Executive Director and here spent almost 7 years.
In his previous roles, he worked with companies Hewlett Packard, Reliance Retail, East India Hotels (The Oberoi, Bangalore), Blue Cross Lab, and Cosme Matias Menezes Group.
Anshul Bhargava joined POSOCO as Director -Human Resources
Power System Operation Corporation (POSOCO), a PSU under the Ministry of Power said that Anshul Bhargava has taken over charge as Director- Human Resources on Monday, June 14. He replaces Meenakshi Davar who superannuated on January 1, 2021.
Bhargava will be overall in charge of coordinating and implementing human resource policies, talent management, human resource development, industrial relations, and other strategic HR functions in the organization, the company said in a statement. Prior to this, Anshul was working with PNB Housing Finance Limited as Chief People Officer & Head HR, Administration. In his new role, Anshul will be overall in charge of the entire gamut of Human Resources.
IBM Spinoff Kyndryl appointed a new Chief Human Resources Officer
IBM Spinoff Kyndryl has announced the appointment of Maryjo Charbonnier as the company’s Chief Human Resources Officer. Charbonnier comes to Kyndryl from Wolters Kluwer, where she has served as Chief Human Resources Officer for the global provider of professional information, software solutions, and services for professionals since the start of 2015; she was responsible for the design and implementation of all human resources strategies, policies, and processes.
Earlier, she served as Chief Human Resources Officer at Broadridge Financial Solutions, a global Fintech company, for seven years. Previously, Charbonnier was an HR executive in a variety of leadership roles at PepsiCo, including Vice President for Talent Sustainability for PepsiCo Foods Americas, a unit with $30 billion in revenues and more than 120,000 employees.
Strides Pharma roped in Essar veteran Dr. Tanaya Mishra as Global CHRO
Strides Pharma appointed Dr. Tanaya Mishra as the global CHRO. At Strides Pharma as Global Chief Human Resources Officer, she is responsible for the entire gamut of the People & Culture agenda globally.
Dr. Tanaya comes with over 25 years of rich and diverse experience, having worked across industries like Manufacturing, Retail, Insurance, and IT/ITES. In her previous stint, she was associated with Essar Projects, where she worked for almost one and a half years. Earlier, she worked with Accenture as MD-Human Resources (APAC) for three & a half years, and previously, she was associated with big companies like SBI Life Insurance, Shoppers Stop Ltd, ACC Concrete Ltd, DHL, and JSW in key leadership roles.
Home Credit India appointed Harshita Khanna as Chief People Officer
Home Credit India (HCIN), a part of Home Credit Group, an international consumer finance provider has elevated Harshita Khanna as Chief People Officer, In her new role, she is responsible for leading the HR vertical for India business. In her most recent role, she was working as Head- Rewards and Performance Management at Home Credit India for close to 6 years.
Harshita comes with over fifteen years of relevant experience in human resources and her competencies lies in Rewards and Performance management, Merger & Acquisition, Succession Planning, Business Partnering, Talent Management and development, and HR digitalization.
Airtel appointed Amrita Padda as Chief People Officer
Bharti Airtel announced the appointment of Amrita Padda as the Chief People Officer (CPO). She replaces Samit Deb who has decided to leave the company for achieving his entrepreneurial goals.
Most recently, she was the Chief People Officer for Unilever Marketplace, their newly set up global business unit to transform Distributive Trade. Earlier, she has also led Human Resources for Unilever Philippines and for their Global Procurement function. Amrita did bachelor’s in Commerce and earned Master’s degree in human resources from XLRI Jamshedpur.
JB Chemicals & Pharmaceuticals India named Cipla veteran as Head – HR
Suresh Amin has joined JB Chemicals & Pharmaceuticals as Head – HR, India Business. In his most recent role, he was working with Cipla as Director & Head HO HR and Cluster Partner Respiratory.
Prior to Cipla, he worked with Tata Motors as Head – HR, ERC (R&D) and Member – Engineering Leadership Team, and Aviva Global Services as Associate Vice President and Head – HR for almost six years. Previously, he was associated with companies like Shoftcell Technologies and Thermax Limited. He earned Post Graduate degree in Personnel & Management Science from Pune University in 1995