up! SURGE Mentors for August 2023
Anuja Singh
Head of HR, Ninjacart
A well-rounded professional with a successful track record in various core HR functions, Anuja has led teams across HR generalist, C&B, service delivery and recruitment operations, campus recruitment, HR consulting, Talent development, HR change, HR Risk and program management functions, and has been responsible in setting up people related structures in organizations.
She has also worked in business roles involving strategic initiatives like digitization, transformation and global location strategies.
Anuja values partnership and team spirit and has a balance of conceptual, strategic thinking and a practical “get the job done” delivery focus. She thrives in and contributes to a learning environment, constantly evolving and developing new skill sets.
Thus she influences change and drives it.
Brajesh Bajpai
Commercial Director – International Business, Vodacom
Brajesh is an MBA (XLRI – Gold Medalist 1996) & Civil Engineer (BITS Pilani) from India. An Ashridge Accredited Coach who holds a diploma in coaching from University of Cambridge and a second Master’s from Ashridge, HULT University in executive coaching. He is currently pursuing his doctoral research in “Coaching for the Digital Age” from Oxford Brookes University, UK.
In his role as commercial director for Vodacom in Africa, he is based in Johannesburg and travels extensively across the growth continent. Before Vodacom Africa, Brajesh was the global head of marketing & segments for Vodafone at their London HQ, where he was also part of the UN HeForShe initiative. With Vodafone he was also the CEO of Gujarat & ANE operations in India. He has worked for Marico as Regional Head for 18 countries of Middle East and North Africa based in Dubai. Brajesh started his professional life with a multifaceted decade long tenure with PepsiCo India.
ChetChat is one of India's largest dedicated YouTube Platforms for career and higher education. Chetna is also a TEDx speaker, LinkedIn Top voice and a passionate educationist. She was the Head of Content Marketing for BYJU'S for three years where she set up their content marketing team from scratch.
She is a gold medalist from XLRI Jamshedpur and was a corporate and institutional banker with ANZ Grindlays Bank and Standard Chartered Bank for 10 years. She has also been a visiting faculty in the area of marketing at various B-Schools, including IIM- Bangalore, NMIMS and NITIE.
Chetna Vasishth
Founder, ChetChat
Ganesh Subramanian
Chief Human Resources Officer, More Retail Private Limited
Experienced HR leader with around 25 years of HR experience across FMCG, Startup and Organised Retail.
Ganesh started his career with Unilever as a Management Trainee in 1998 after completing an MBA in Human Resources from XLRI Jamshedpur. He worked as Regional Change Management Director for Asia, Africa and Central Europe for the world's largest HR outsourcing programme at that time. As HR Director for Unilever's services and IT organisation (called ETS) he drove organisational transformation and set up and ramped up hubs in Bangalore, Manila and Katowice. It was during his stint as the Diversity & Inclusion lead for ETS, the Bangalore hub female diversity went up by 1300 bps to 46%.
Ganesh joined Ola Cabs in 2017 as VP HR - marking his move from a storied century old multinational to one of India's earliest Unicorns. He led Ola's foray into international markets - UK, Australia and NZ.
As the CHRO of More Retail. India's third largest food and grocer retailer with c900 stores, c13000 permanent employees and annual revenues of $ 666m, his role is to unleash human potential to deliver business value.
Madhavi Lall
Managing Director, Head HR India, Deutsche Bank
Madhavi has more than 30 years of work experience primarily in Human Resources and has been the head HR at Deutsche Bank India since May 2015. She has also worked with companies like Accenture, Standard Charted Bank, ABN Amro bank, Colgate Palmolive, HCL Hewlett- Packard & GlaxoSmithKline.
Madhavi has been conferred the Distinguished Alumnus Award by XLRI in 2016. Madhavi is a member of the CII National Committee on Leadership and HR and was Chairperson - CII Indian Women Network (IWN) – Western Region 2020-21. She is also a founding member of the HR Committee for FICCI.
She is passionate about Diversity and Inclusion and was part of the alumni team that encouraged XLRI to launch the Centre of Gender Equality and Inclusion.
She is a graduate in Mathematics from St. Stephen’s college and MBA in HR and Systems from XLRI Jamshedpur.
Manoj Madhusudhanan
Senior Vice President and Head of India and APAC - Analytics – EXL
Manoj is an international business leader with over 25 years of experience across technology, consulting and analytics. He currently leads the 5000 people analytics and data science team at EXL India. He is also responsible for building EXL’s analytics business in Asia Pacific.
Prior to joining EXL, Manoj was the Head of India at dunnhumby, a customer data science firm. Earlier in his career, he had global stints with Accenture, Evalueserve and Infosys. He was also the co-founder and CEO of an AI-driven B2B start-up named Ziligence.
Manoj is a B.Tech. in Mechanical Engineering from IIT Madras and an MBA in Finance and Marketing from XLRI Jamshedpur.
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Patricia Mathias
Head - Gender platform at AVPN
Patricia joined AVPN in April 2020 as Head of the Gender Platform to launch the Asia Gender Network and improve the lives of women and girls across Asia. With the support of the Gates Foundation, the Asia Gender Network was launched in March 2021. It is a growing group of female philanthropists committed to changing the future for Asian women- individually and through collaboration. Patricia also leads AVPNs work in the gender equality space through the Gender platform. This includes working with funders across the continuum of capital, as well as working with corporates as they drive their ‘women in leadership’ agenda. AVPN corporate members include Unilever, Kellogg, JP Morgan, UBS, DBS etc. Further, some of this work influenced the gender agenda at the G20 in Indonesia and continues through to G20 India.
Patricia served as the CEO for Magic Bus foundation for South East Asia, a charity that helps lift children out of poverty. During her four years tenure, Patricia led strategic planning and fundraising for the region and established local operations for Magic Bus in Myanmar.
Previously, Patricia spent 20 years with Procter and Gamble where she held marketing and leadership roles and was responsible for multiple brands across various consumer good categories. Her last role was Vice President (Director) Beauty Care for Asia. She currently serves on the P&G Alumni Women Leadership forum board where she supports a program to help Female P&G alumni bring gender diversity to boards.
Patricia has lived in India, Singapore, Malaysia and China. Patricia holds an MBA from XLRI Jamshedpur and is a graduate from Mt Carmel College, Bangalore University. She currently lives in Singapore with her husband, her daughter and their pet dog, Rafa.
Preeti Reddy
Erstwhile CEO & Chairwoman- South Asia, Insights Division, Kantar
As country manager of one of Kantar’s ‘Big Six’ markets, Preeti was part of the global leadership team and an important contributor to Kantar’s growth. During her tenure as CEO, she managed multiple large companies within the Kantar fold (IMRB, TNS and Millward Brown); and then successfully led the merger of these companies into a single entity to build Kantar’s market leader position in South Asia. She steered the organisation towards an end-to-end digital transformation and strengthened India’s position as a global centre of excellence for analytics and research outsourcing. As Chairwoman, she spearheaded Kantar’s Social Charter in South Asia through its DEI, Sustainability and CSR initiatives.
Preeti is widely recognised as a thought leader and has been at the forefront of the development of the consumer insights industry in India.
Preeti has a BA (Hons) degree in Economics from Lady Shri Ram College, Delhi University and is an MBA from XLRI, Jamshedpur.
Punit Misra
President - Content and International Business, Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited (ZEEL)
As ZEEL President, Punit oversees the content business for both the TV network of Zee as well as its digital offering Zee5, domestically and globally. He also manages ZEEL’s international business spanning 170+ countries. Under his leadership, ZEEL became India’s fastest growing entertainment broadcast network in terms of viewership as well as revenue.
Prior to joining ZEEL, Punit spent 20 years at Hindustan Unilever Limited, where in his last role he was part of the Management Committee of HUL, as the Executive Director in charge of Sales and Customer Development for the company, and a member of the global Sales Leadership team of Unilever. His experience spans across several FMCG categories like Laundry, Ice Cream and Skin Cleansing.
As Punit often remarks - his journey has taken him from selling one kind of soap to another!
Punit is an alumnus of IIT Roorkee (Electrical Engineering, 1992), and XLRI (BMD 1996). He currently serves as the Chair of FICCI Broadcast Forum as well as the Co-Chair of the CII Broadcast Committee. He is also on the Board of the Indian Broadcasting Foundation (IBF), the industry body for broadcasters.
Raj Dharmaraj
Head HR Strategic Deals - India & APAC at Cognizant
Head - HR M&A Strategic Deals - India & APAC – Cognizant
Raj has three decades of experience in the IT industry, spanning roles in business technology consulting, key account management and HR. He has worked with clients and stakeholders across the US, APAC, Europe and India.
Raj currently leads Cognizant’s HR M&A Strategic Deals group for India & APAC, responsible for talent strategy, solutions and employee integration relating to acquisitions & rebadging deals. Raj’s areas of interest include change management, coaching and emotional balance.
He is an alumnus of XLRI, a Fulbright Fellow from Carnegie Mellon, and an PCC credentialed coach. Raj is incumbent President of International Coaching Federation-Chennai Chapter, co-founder of Chennai Mentors and an active member of Sweekar - the Rainbow Parents. Outside of work, he enjoys yoga and golf.
Rajesh Ramakrishnan
Managing Director at Perfetti Van Melle India
Managing Director at Perfetti Van Melle India
A veteran with over 29 years of experience in General Management, Sales and Marketing.
An accomplished business leader and a seasoned marketing professional, Rajesh has worked across categories like Personal Care, Household Care, Foods & Beverages, Confectionery and Media.
Prior to joining Perfetti Van Melle in 2014, he was the Marketing Head at HT Media Limited. He has also held senior positions in Pepsico, Marico Industries and Reckitt Benckiser.
Rajesh is a champion for gender equality and is a mentor since the past 6 years with BD foundation. He is currently in the process of getting certified as a Life Coach.
Rajesh has a degree in Engineering from BITS Pilani, and an MBA from XLRI, Jamshedpur.
Rajesh is an award- winning photographer. His work has been featured at Cannes and in several publications in India and abroad. He is passionate about travelling and has been on expeditions to Everest Base Camp, Annapurna Base Camp and Mt. Kilimanjaro.
Rajesh along with his wife and teenage daughter started - My Daughter is Precious [MDIP] in March 2015 to raise awareness about gender equality and support education of the girl child.
Rajesh is also a champion for gender equality and is a mentor for the past 7 years with BD foundation. Rajesh is a certified ACC coach and is currently pursuing his PCC coaching certification.
Ravi Kyran Ramasamy
CHRO - Bajaj
Auto Ltd
Ravi Kyran joined Bajaj Auto in February 2017 as President (Human Resources) and is currently the Chief Human Resources Officer. Bajaj Auto is the world's most valuable two-wheeler company in the world by Market Cap. It’s also the third-largest three and two-wheeler manufacturer by volume. The Bajaj brand is well-known across several countries in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, and South and Southeast Asia.
Prior to joining BAL, Ravi formerly held several HR-leadership positions at Texas Instruments (TI), including heading HR for the company's Dallas(USA)-based High-Performance Analog and Power Management business groups. Before moving to the US in 2008, Ravi was heading HR for Texas Instruments in India. Prior to joining TI in 2004, he worked in several notable companies including Asian Paints, ANZ Grindlays, and Motorola.
He holds a post-graduate diploma in HR from XLRI, Jamshedpur.
Rekha Gomes
Erstwhile Head of Global Risk Operations - HSBC
Rekha has been in the financial services industry for 30+ years. In her prior role, she was the Chief Control Officer for HSBC Wealth and Personal Banking (WPB), responsible for building and maintaining a robust Risk and Control environment aligned with business strategy.
Prior to joining HSBC, she held a number of Senior Management roles within Citi Group. She has worked across various geographies including India, Sweden, UK and Hong Kong.
Rekha is passionate when it comes to supporting people, both within and outside the financial services sector, and takes an active role in mentoring colleagues internally as well as externally. She has an avid interest in staying abreast of developments across the wider industry and is a regular speaker at internal as well as external events on topics relating to risk management and diversity and inclusion.
A strong, female leader and passionate advocate for women in the organisation, Rekha also led the Operations and HSBC WPB Diversity and Inclusion agenda, championing to build a diverse and even more inclusive organisation, leading on a number of initiatives across LGBT+, Disability, Gender, Ethnicity & Wellness.
Her interests and hobbies include physical fitness and travel, and she often combines her family holidays with cycling and trekking adventures. Rekha and her husband have two grown up children and they love to spend time walking their golden retriever.
Shoma Narayanan
Executive Director - Group Strategic Marketing & Communications, DBS Bank India
Shoma joined DBS Bank India in July 2019 to head Group Strategic Marketing & Communications. As an experienced senior marketing professional, her career spans both digital and traditional marketing, product management, and sales in banking. In her role at DBS, Shoma has been developing innovative brand campaigns and leading sustainability initiatives for the bank in India.
Previously, Shoma spearheaded marketing at HSBC. Apart from a brief stint at ICICI Bank, a large part of her career pre-DBS was at HSBC. Shoma’s areas of expertise include marketing strategy, corporate brand development, brand management and sustainability.
She is also an internationally published author. Her books have been translated into more than ten languages, including French, Italian and German. After completing an engineering degree in her hometown Jabalpur, she pursued her Post Graduate Diploma in Marketing and Finance from XLRI Jamshedpur.
Shonalie Gupta
Principal Consultant/ AVP – ANSR
Shonalie is building HR practices for high growth captive technology capability centers for companies such as 3M, FedEx, Inspire Brands et.al. She has led several strategic programs to enable change management, and post-merger integration.
Prior to joining ANSR, Shonalie was the Head of HR for Global Technology Centre for ATKINS. She was accountable for building India from 500 to 3,500 headcount. She formulated and executed the HR agenda for the organization for 6 years. She then moved to an international role to widen the impact across South-East Asia, Greater China, Australia and India.
In the past decade, Shonalie has consulted companies in the space of Leadership Development (Assessment of Potential, Coaching). Shonalie has participated and led projects in Organization Design, Job Analysis and Job Evaluation, and Talent Management.
Overall Shonalie has 20+ years of experience in Talent assessment, Succession Planning, Organizational Transformation & Change Management. She is passionate about DEI and early career mentoring programs.
Suchitra Rajendra
Founder and CEO of QED! HR
Suchitra Rajendra is a global HR leader and entrepreneur. She has over 30 years of corporate experience and is currently the CEO and Founder of QED! HR, a boutique HR consulting firm based out of India.
Prior to this she was the MD and country head for Colt tech services, India as well as their VP HR for global operations, spanning Europe, Asia and US. Earlier, she was the CHRO for PepsiCo India Region. She has worked across Asia, Europe and Australia in CXO capacities. She received internal and external recognition for her work on the DEI agenda at the national and global level.
She advises companies on their diversity and inclusion strategy, and mentors and coaches women leaders. She is on the advisory board for NGOs Alohomora education trust and Saanidhya school for mentally challenged children supporting them on their communication strategy.
She is a well-known speaker in the areas of leadership, diversity and inclusion and HR strategy. She is a globally certified coach and global member of the International Coaching Federation in their nomination and selection committee to their global Board. She is an avid runner and loves travelling.
Sunit Sinha
Partner and Head - People, Performance and Culture
KPMG, India
Sunit brings more than 25 years of experience in consulting and industry. His functional expertise includes organization strategy and transformation, human capital strategy and leadership development, organization design, post-merger integration, culture transformation and HR transformation in a digital world. In his current role, he leads the HR team at KPMG in India – driving talent strategy, people culture and professional development across the Firm.
Previously, Sunit was with Accenture as a Managing Director in the Talent and Organization practice, where he engaged in large transformation engagements with clients across Asia-Pacific and the Middle East. He has also built global consulting capabilities in China, Indonesia and Latin America.
Sunit has an MBA in HR from XLRI Jamshedpur and BA (Honors) in History from the University of Delhi. In his leisure, Sunit enjoys blogging on contemporary interest issues ranging from military history and space exploration to geopolitics. He is a volunteer member of the Search of Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). Sunit is married to Preneet, who is also an HR professional and leads APAC HR for a global medical devices company; they have two daughters.
up! SURGE Mentors for in Previous Years
Amita Maheshwari
Operating Director - Talent - Kedaara Capital
Amita is an Electronics & Telecom Engineer with a specialization in Human Resources from XLRI. In her 26 years of experience, she has been in leadership positions in fast growing organizations across multiple industries. She has successfully managed Head of HR as well as Line/Corporate roles with multiple business/country responsibilities.
She has experience in diverse industries ranging from Asian Paints to GE Capital, Genpact, MetLife India Insurance, Star and Disney.
She has worked extensively with global teams across US, Europe and Asia including setting up Genpact’s Global Employment Organization across 12 countries in Europe & Asia.
Amita is on the board of International NGO Care India and People Matters, an HR Tech company.
Anuj Chadha
Founder, Three Circles
Anuj worked with PepsiCo for nearly 23 years since 1999. He gained invaluable experience across Commercial Sales, Category Marketing, General Management, and Transformation Functions spanning India, Indonesia and PepsiCo's Africa, Middle East, Asia and APAC Regions. He learnt the art and science of leading large teams, leading a $200 million portfolio as GM for PepsiCo Indonesia, and playing a foundational leader role in building one of the largest transformations at PepsiCo - Global Business Services.
Anuj discovered a passion for Coaching while supporting his team members. Combined with his passion for self-awareness and Eastern philosophies including Vedanta and Buddhism, he entered a full-time career as a Life and Executive Coach in 2022 and set up Three Circles, his Coaching practice.
An MBA from XLRI Jamshedpur and a graduate from Shri Ram College of Commerce, he lives in Bangalore with his wife Pooja and twin daughters.
Ashok Ramchandran
Group Executive President - Group Human Resources at the Aditya Birla Group
Group Executive President - Human Resources at the Aditya Birla Group.
​In this role, Ashok oversees HR for a portfolio consisting of a set of businesses across the conglomerate, as well as the Group Centres of Expertise - of Learning & Talent Development, Talent Staffing and Employee Relations.
​Ashok carries over 32 years of rich and varied experience in HR, spanning multiple sectors in companies such as Asian Paints, GE Capital, Tata AIG Insurance and Vodafone India. ​
Across his career, Ashok has led HR teams to deliver both strong, strategic impact as well as building depth of HR processes. Ashok is a strong believer in talent and potential, and building of strong opportunities and careers for people.
Ashok was awarded the Seasoned HR Professional by NHRDN in 2015, and the CHRO of the Year – 2017 at the Business World Excellence Awards.
C V L Srinivas
Country Manager, WPP India
WPP is the world’s largest Advertising and Media Agency group and is headquartered in London. An advertising and media industry veteran of nearly 30 years, Srinivas spent most of his career with the WPP group.
His areas of focus include driving client centricity through integrated agency models, leveraging technology along with creativity to transform the business, and building an open, optimistic, and extraordinary culture. Srinivas is a member of WPP’s global DE&I Council and has championed the setting up of a very successful mentorship program for women leaders. Srinivas is closely associated with the WPP India Foundation that supports 20,000 children from under-privileged sections of society with vocational and educational skills.
Srinivas has a Mechanical Engineering degree from BITS Pilani, PG Diploma in Business Management from XLRI Jamshedpur and a Diploma in AI for Business from Oxford University.
Gaurav Puri
Former Head of Marketing& Products and Sr EVP, UTI Mutual Fund
An accomplished business leader, in his recent corporate role, Gaurav worked at the intersection of consumer insights, data, digital and product creation for UTI Asset Management Ltd and provided leadership to four very diverse teams. He also led a large digital transformation exercise prior to the pandemic for the firm. He was a founding member of the AMFI financial literacy committee and led communication development on "MF Sahi hai” campaign (a category growth initiative)
His previous assignment was as Director Marketing and Product Development, MetLife. Having worked with a variety of companies such as FMCG Majors (Britannia Industries Limited-Danone group and Perfetti Van Melle) and the Insurance industry, he has over 25 Years of diverse experience. He has been an active mentor for the last 2 years working for the BD foundation.
After completing his Bachelor of Engineering (Mechanical} from Regional Engineering College, Bhopal (MANIT) he went on to earn his PGDBM from XLRI, Jamshedpur.( Marketing & Operations)
Maya John
Chief People officer, VerSe Innovation,
Chief People officer, VerSe Innovation,
A seasoned professional, Maya has over 20 years of experience and has been part of the start-up digital media space for the past 6 years. Her expertise is in organization and talent development, providing strategic HR Business support for building and scaling teams working closely with executive leadership teams. She represents VerSe on the Customer Advisory Board for LinkedIn.
Maya is a founding team member of the Centre for Gender Equality & Inclusive Leadership (CGEIL) at XLRI, a first of its kind in a B-School and is a core team member of the Alumni team – XLRI for Women (XL4W).
She won the Women Disruptors 2022 award in media and was recognised by XLRI for her contributions in the field of HR and towards the cause of increasing the impact of women in the workforce in India.
Maya earned her B. Tech Computer Science Engineering from MIT, Manipal and MBA from XLRI Jamshedpur. She also has an MBA in Marketing from Santa Clara University, CA, US. She is married to Jacksy, and they have two kids.
Priya Srinivasan
Chief People and Purpose Officer - Coty, Amsterdam
Chief People and Purpose Officer - Coty, Amsterdam
Priya was previously Sr Vice President HR of the Health Business Unit at Reckitt consisting of circa 10,000 employees across geographies and functions. Prior to Reckitt, Priya spent 14 years in AstraZeneca in various roles across continents. She has led HR for Asia Pacific as well as Emerging Markets and Europe. Priya began her career in Colgate Palmolive and held several specialist and generalist HR roles for over 7 years in various countries.
Priya has extensive HR experience and has worked successfully across Centre of Expertise and Business Partnering roles in local, regional, and global setting. She is passionate about diversity of thought and experience shaped by her own international experience having worked and lived in multiple countries - UK, US, China, Hong Kong, Singapore and India.
Priya has a Bachelors degree in Economics and Mathematics and an MBA in Human Resources Management from XLRI. She is married and has 2 daughters
Priyali Kamath
Senior Vice President - Olay & Personal Care
Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa
Senior Vice President - Skin & Personal Care - Procter & Gamble
Priyali joined Procter & Gamble in 1999 as Human Resources Manager at their Headquarters in India. Since then, she has worked across a diverse set of disciplines – Human Resources, Media & Digital Transformation and Brand Management – and categories, with local, regional and global responsibilities. She has led dramatic turnaround and acceleration on top & bottom line for several big businesses like Feminine Care in India, Oral Care & Hair Care in Asia Pacific and Home Care Global. In 2018, she was appointed Senior Vice President of Skin & Personal Care Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa (AMA), leading one of P&G’s fastest growing and most profitable category for the region.
Priyali is a passionate brand builder and a great believer in the power of people. She is a champion for equality and inclusion and the executive sponsor of GABLE (LGBTQ+ employee support group) for P&G AMA. As a working Mother, she is especially motivated by helping other women grow to their full potential – and is an active Sponsor and Mentor for female talent both within P&G, and externally through organizations like the American Chamber of Commerce and VLookUp.
Shreya Bhagwanth
Executive Director - HR, 3M
Asia Total Rewards and Services Leader - 3M
Shreya is responsible for Compensation and Benefits Strategy and Execution for an employee base of over 10K across North Asia, ANZ, SEA and India and a Collateral Assignment of Inclusion Champion.
With 20 + years of experience in various HR roles, Shreya is an experienced HR leader with expertise in areas of Strategic Business Partnering, Leadership Development, Talent Management, Competence Management, Development Frameworks, HR Strategy Formulation, Employer Brand Management and Workforce Planning.
Shreya is passionate about the difference and impact that HR makes in an organization and enabling / mentoring women with their Career Intentionality.
Shreya holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Arts (Economics) from University of Mumbai and a Post Graduate Diploma in PM & IR from XLRI Jamshedpur. Shreya’s hobbies include Music, Baking and Travelling with her family. She is a Star Wars Fangirl and believes that Yoda offers great Management Insight! Shreya is married to Mahesh and they have two teenage children.
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