up! SURGE Facilitators September 2022!
Shabari Madappa
Leadership Facilitator & Executive Coach
Shabari is a trained Facilitator, Executive Coach and OD consultant with nearly 30 years of experience in the corporate world.
Shabari works extensively with leaders and teams across different cultures - Asia, EMEA, Australia, USA. Her work aims to help leaders enhance their human sensitivity, potential and learning agility in middle & senior leadership roles to better support their result and business orientation.
Between 1992 and 2008: Shabari held senior leadership roles with Indian and multinational firms in the telecommunications and semiconductor industry; with Texas Instruments and Sasken Communication Technologies Ltd in Bangalore. She has also worked with the Maharaja Group of Companies (Colombo, Sri Lanka) heading their Training function. She began her career in 1992 with the HR function at Titan Industries, a TATA group company.
Since 2008, Shabari's experience as an entrepreneur includes running a successful chain of restaurants for over 5 years.
As a Leadership Consultant :
- Design and facilitation of learning experiences (virtual and in-person sessions) for mid to senior level leaders. Several learning journeys are a blend of training and 1:1 coaching
- Facilitate team conversations around road mapping, collaboration, institution building
- Design and delivery of Assessment and Development centres
- Executive Coach for leaders in 1:1, group & team coaching environments
Clients are from the technology industry, consumer goods, healthcare, energy & petro-chemicals industry and financial sectors.
Diversity, Equity & Inclusion
Shabari works with clients to help create a more gender balanced workforce primarily through
- workshops for leadership teams
- design and delivery of learning experiences for women leaders
- inclusion diagnostics and surveys
She holds a leadership role as Vice-President of XL4W (XLRI for Women, an alumni chapter) which has a singular focus of improving the participation of women in the workforce in India.
Anuradha Rai
Founding Director, People Worth Pte Ltd,
​
Anuradha Rai has twenty years of senior corporate experience spanning leadership roles in New York, Singapore and London. Her skill sets cross a unique intersection of People, Strategy & Transformation disciplines across diverse industries. Today, Anuradha is the Founding Director of People Worth Pte Ltd, a Leadership and Organizational Transformation practice based out of Singapore. Her clients are largely Fortune 500 firms with engagements on coaching leadership teams through organizational transformations, Leadership Developmentand Cultural Change. Anuradha also acts as a retained advisor to Singapore based investor platforms for
market ready start-ups.
In her corporate career, Anuradha was most recently with Credit Suisse with eleven years in global/ regional leadership roles based out of New York & Singapore. As head of People & Change, she led the organizational restructure, leadership transformation and skills shift for a +7000 Division’s transformation from Production to Service orientation. While at Credit Suisse, Anuradha also led workforce strategy for +12000 employee division.This included assessing talent markets in EMEA/ AM and APAC to define a location strategy for the bank, optimising workforce composition and preparing the workforce to be future ready through strategic skill investments. In this role, Anuradha also led a multiyear and award-winning Cultural Change Transformation to shift culture and behaviours, running culture assessments, coaching leaders and aligning organizational reward mechanisms to drive behavioural change. Prior to her global roles, Anuradha led regional talent development for APAC for +3000 division with the bank. She also headed the regional Diversity & Inclusion Council with an ambitious agenda to move the needle on D&I by removing institutionalised biases and an increased investment infemale talent. In addition to her time in financial services Anuradha has also had a successful four-year stint with Pfizer in the UK, and at Nestle, India where she started her career.
Anuradha holds a post graduate degree in Human Resources from XLRI (India) and a Bachelors (Honours) degree in Psychology from Lady Shri Ram College. She is a certified facilitator with accreditation in a number of organizational inventories, psychometric and Cultural Change tools. She has won several awards for Strategy Development and research papers. Anuradha is an active Diversity & Inclusion champion holding significant leadership positions in D&I forums and sponsor to women across industries. Anuradha lives in Singapore, where she relocated to from New York in 2020.
Jayashree Braganza (Marakini)
Executive Coach, Psychotherapist, Facilitator, Mentor
​
Jayashree Marakini Braganza is an Executive Coach (ICF - PCC), Psychotherapist, Seasoned Facilitator and Mentor. She co-founded Chrysalyst with the aim to support people be their best version. Chrysalyst offers the right balance of nurture and nudge to empower and transform individuals and organizations. Jayashree straddles several domains with ease and works with clients across the globe.
Jayashree is a strong mental health advocate and has an active psychotherapy practice. Her mission is to destigmatise therapy. She believes that seeking therapy should be as convenient as a visit to a GP.
In her roles as a Coach and Mentor Jayashree combines her corporate experience across multiple departments with her expertise in human transformation. She enjoys partnering with individuals eager to do the inner work required to be a transformational leader. She is also empanelled with several incubators as a Coach, Counsellor and Facilitator for their cohorts.
Jayashree is an advocate for the transformational power of Coaching and volunteers her time in leadership roles at International Coaching Federation (ICF). She is the Vice President of the Board of Directors at ICF Bengaluru and the Ambassador at ICF’s Global Community of Practice for Group and Team Coaching. She endeavours to demystify coaching for individuals and support Coaches in their learning and practice.
Jayashree is passionate about championing and enabling Equity and Inclusion for all – across all genders & sexualities and across physical & neurological diversities. She carves out time to support three distinct groups – Women, Queer communities and families of neuro-diverse children.
Jayashree is an Alumnus of XLRI (batch of 1999) and has a bachelor’s degree in psychology. She brings with her 20 years of experience across sales, marketing, operations, consulting & L&D, in Titan Company, Marico Limited, Dairy Farm International and Imagin8ors, amongst others.
​
Patricia Mathais
Head - Gender Platform, 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 support from the Gates Foundation, the Asia Gender Network is a growing group of female philanthropists committed to changing the future for Asian women and girls individually and through collaboration. Members of AGN commit time and capital to causes which improve outcomes for women and girls, are rooted in regional expertise, and offer locally relevant solutions.
Patricia has experience in both for profit and not for profit organizations, most recently serving as the CEO for Magic Bus Singapore and SouthEast Asia, a charity that helps lift children out of poverty. During her four year tenure, Patricia led strategy planning and fundraising for the region, and established local operations for Magic Bus in Myanmar.
Previously, Patricia spent 20 years with Procter & Gamble where she held marketing and leadership roles and was responsible for multiple brands across various consumer goods categories. She has lived in India, Singapore, Malaysia and China.
Patricia holds her MBA from XLRI Jamshedpur, and is a graduate from Mt Carmel College, Bangalore/ Bangalore University.
Sangeetha Rajalakshmi
Head Human Resources, Tyson Foods International
​
Sangeetha Rajalakshmi is a global HR leader, currently the HR Head for Tyson Foods Asia. She was earlier Head of HR Asia for Whirlpool Corp. based out of Hong Kong. Prior to that she worked with Unilever (13 years, India & UK), HSBC Bank (2 years, India), ABN AMRO Bank (2 years, India) and GlaxoSmithKline Consumer healthcare limited (5 years, India). She has experience in HR partnering , Capability and Leadership development, change management and transformation.
Her passions are in helping people understand themselves - being aware of and loving their real selves as well as helping businesses grow. She is curious about the nature of kindness and emotional vulnerability and channeling this for growth. An alumnus of XLRI (batch of 99) PMIR, she has a bachelor's degree in English and Journalism.
In her spare time, when she has some she can be found with her nose in a book with a cup of tea alongside her. She and her banker husband manage a long distance family spread across 5 countries, including a daughter studying to be a Materials engineer and a 12 years old son who is her investment adviser.
Shubha Kasi
Freelance - Leadership Development
Shubha’s journey in HR has been one of unlearning, as much as it has been of learning. Like many before and after her, she chose to work in HR because she enjoyed being with and helping people. Two years at XLRI (PMIR, 1992) quickly disabused her of the notion that HR people need only to “like people”. The depth and range of the science behind the HR function fascinated her and reaffirmed her interest in the discipline.
Her experience in the line HR function started with Gulf Oil in Mumbai in 1992 where she was a part of the team that set up the Personnel function, the plant at Silvassa, and processes across the organisation. Dealing with the hard rules, and difficult conversations with employees and managers opened her eyes to the fact that not much about HR is “nice”! Crossing the floor to consulting, she had worked on her own, and with Cerebrus Consulting. Her biggest learning in this stint was the ability to encapsulate her work in terms of value to another person and to the organisation – a key skill for HR!
A graduate degree in Statistics (St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai, 1989) helped in her role in setting up and building the Research & Development function at Mercer over a 7-year period. This role, combining the domain expertise of compensation and benefits, with analytics and research skills, and the need to sell one’s product through a network of consultants, was unlike any other HR role, and gave her a unique perspective on working across various countries in the Asia-Pacific region. A key takeaway here was that a consulting solution must be in the language of the team needing the solution, not the consultant providing it. This insight drove her to seek senior roles to walk the talk in line HR.
Next was a stint of five years, managing multiple roles across India and Tunisia at SunGard, based in Bangalore. This role encompassed Performance, Compensation & Rewards, and HR Operations. For personal health reasons she then moved to Chennai and joined TNQ Technology to head HR, in Chennai, where she brought together her business skills with HR depth to help drive the organisation through a period of intense growth and change. The rationalisation of roles across business and HR to ensure each plays to their strengths, the professionalisation of the HR function, creating platforms and channels for employee voices, the identification and establishing another centre in a new location were all interesting steps along her journey at TNQ. Two highlights external to the HR function were building the Language Editing Training function and creating an online learning framework at TNQ. The Integrated Learning Framework is still a work in progress.
From Jan 2022, she has been on her own, working on select assignments in transformation and talent optimisation. She advises on how organisations can help individuals achieve and expand their potential and impact within professional environments.
Aparna Ponappa
Founder - REDD Network
​
Passionate about inspiring people to expand their capabilities and becoming their best selves through workshops and engaging interactions, Aparna is an alumnus of XLRI, with a formal education in Human Resource Management (PGDPMIR). Other than subjects in HRM she majored in Business Communication and Strategy.
A key project that she led, was the provision of staples for those most effected by the Covid 19 lockdown in Bangalore and has been instrumental in getting across food ration kits that impacted over 11,00,000 individuals and counting, under the name of Covid Relief Bangalore, TN and Karnataka. This led to the creation of an organization called Mission Vishwas that looks at livelihood creation, she is a director with the foundation. She also spearheaded the creation and management of a Covid Care Isolation Facility for the poor of Bangalore and is associated with numerous initiatives as an advisor and coach.
She has also conducted over a 100 successful online sessions with audience sizes ranging from 10 to 650, covering learning journeys, competency building workshops and thematic learning sessions.
She started her career in HR and was heading the training function for the South Based Operationsof Grindwell Norton – Saint Gobain and quickly moved to heading all of the HR functions for 7 businesses of the Company’s South-Based Operations.
Post that she made a career switch and joined the Retail team of Titan Industries Limited. Here she headed the training and customer experience function for the Watches – Retail Business pioneering many retail training practices and also creating and conducting a unique and innovative retail frontline assessment centre called Face of Titan. From Titan she moved to Himalaya Drug Company where she headed the retail business and was instrumental in bringing a positive impact on the bottom-line of the division by leading a team-restructuring initiative, renegotiating terms of trade with all the franchisees of the company and introducing new below-the-line marketing initiatives for the Company. She then moved to Levi’s and introduced many customer delight initiatives for the new concept of Levi Flagship Stores and managed what was then one of the most successful End-of-Season sales. Her last employment was with Reliance Retail when the formats for Reliance Retail were still on the drawing board. She was part of the team working on the launch of the first Hyper Store and managed marketing for the categories – Books, Music, Movies, Toys, Stationery, Sporting Goods and Fitness Equipment - across all formats of Reliance Retail. She worked on the launch of the first Reliance Jewels store and finally went on to lead marketing for Reliance TimeOut and led the function for 20 stores.
In 2010 she started her own consulting firm called REDD Network which provides consulting, training, design and workshops in the field of Leadership and Performance Management for corporate. The mission of REDD Network is to be the premier provider of sales and service- focused consulting & COMPETENCY BUILDING SERVICES.
On the personal front, she is married and has one son and splits her time between Bangalore and Coorg, when she is not travelling on work. She actively pursues her interest in painting and NLP. She is one of the key members of Beautiful Bengaluru (now called Beautiful Bharat) – a citizen’s movement with a clean, green, safe city agenda. She is the president of the Bangalore Alumni Chapter of XLRI (term ending in 2021), the oldest business school in India. She is the founding member of XL4W and CGEIL – working towards increasing the participation of Indian women in the workforce. She is currently also working with DDI and Interweave on a host of management and leadership programs as a senior consultant and works with Prajna Wisdom Foundation on bringing innovative workshops to a larger audience. She is also a Trustee with Diya Ghar that brings pre-primary education to the children of some of the poorest migrant families in Bangalore.
Jayanti 'Jonty' Rajagopalan
Managing Partner, Detours India
Jayanti Rajagopalan aka Jonty graduated from XLRI in 1995 and joined Titan Industries in the HR Department at their Hosur Factory. After two years, she moved into the Sales & Marketing function and worked in various locations across the country. She was a part of the Sonata team during its launch as a separate brand and also did a stint in the Retail function as the head of The World of Titan chain of exclusive showrooms. In 2006, After 11 years with Titan, she moved to the Social Development Sector with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) as a part of Avahan, the HIV prevention program working with female sex workers and other vulnerable populations in erstwhile Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and parts of North East and Karnataka.
Finally, in 2008, she decided to follow her passion of travel, food and history and started Detours India, a boutique tour company specialising in offbeat individual and small group tours in Hyderabad. The company also conducts an annual specialised itinerary called Khaanasutra, a twelve-day culinary tour across a few cities in India and The Deccan Discovery that brings to life the lesser-known history of the Deccan region. Apart from the individual and small group tours, they also design special interactive team building activities for corporate groups using history and culture as the theme. During the pandemic, they modified these offerings to an online version and have worked with organisations like Novartis, ICICI etc to provide interesting employee engagement activities.
In July 2022, Jonty also completed her Accredited Coach Training Programme (ACTP) from Master My Life and is in the process of completing her required hours for accreditation.
Sunita Sinha
Owner & Consultant - Gestalt Alt Consulting
Sunita works on the people side of change as an Interventionist / Facilitator / Coach / System Designer / OD Consultant. She is a Gestalt Psychologist and Researcher. During Covid 19, with 25+ years of corporate experience, she decided to consult on her own and she has established her consulting firm, Gestalt Alt Consulting!
Her mission is to support leaders to build a High Performing Organization focussed on sustained growth of the business.
Alt stands for “Alternate” consulting with a focus on understanding the context of clients and co-creating solutions to business strategy and design. Where the organization is focussed on operational efficiency Sunita helps in design support in building capability of individuals and capacity within, unique to the business strategy. She has developed her own Human centred design for Organizations to build agility & adaptation in mid-size organizations, her own consulting model.
Sunita has experience in Diversified business and industries as an Internal OD Consultant working in India, across Asia. As a Talent Integrator, HR Transformation Lead, Organization Effectiveness Head, Wellness Project Head, Engagement Lead, Change/Program Management Lead, Program Director - Learning and an HR Leader, Sunita has donned multiple hats and aced myriad roles and positions, bringing in change and transformation.
Sunita has exposure in working for Large Indian Conglomerates with a global footprint (Aditya Birla Group; Oracle Financials, Essar Oil, Ultratech Cement, Gyanodaya – Aditya Birla Learning Center) so designing for large complex systems, building for scale has been her core competence and unique strength.
Sumita Datta
Professor (adjunct) of Organization Behavior,
Leadership & HRM and Advisor - Women Leadership Programs at S.P. Jain Institute of
Management & Research, Mumbai.
Sumita Datta (PhD) is a behavioral scientist with expertise in curating learning innovations & leadership development processes along with a passion for creating inclusive workplaces. She has more than 15 years of teaching experience in management education and prior 15 years of corporate experience serving in HR leadership as well as consulting roles in large organizations viz. Eveready Industries, Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd., Siemens - South Asia and Great Place to Work, India. Currently Dr. Datta is a Professor of Organization Behavior, Leadership & HRM and Advisor - Women Leadership Programs at S.P. Jain Institute of Management & Research, Mumbai, in adjunct capacity.
She lives in Lisbon, Portugal with her family for most part of the year and is engaged in impact-driven research, teaching, training, and coaching for leadership development globally and in India. With special interest in promoting diversity & inclusion, Dr Datta championed a management program for women in family managed business/ entrepreneurship for five years since 2012 in SPJIMR. In 2016, she started a first of its kind fulltime MBA program for qualified and experienced women who have taken a break to help them return to their corporate careers. In 2017, this program got global recognition as ‘Innovations That Inspire’ under the category 'Engaging a Diverse Community.’ Concurrently, over the years, she has curated women leadership development programs in large corporates and coached more than 200 women entrepreneurs and corporate leaders.
A Post-Graduate in Organization Behavior & HRM from XLRI Jamshedpur, India (1992), she received her PhD. from IIT Bombay in 2010. She is a certified MBTI, Saville, EQi 2.0 & NLP practitioner, a certified Integral Coach from New Ventures West, USA and ICF accredited Professional Certified Coach. Dr. Datta has published several scholarly articles in international refereed journals and conference proceedings.
Bhavana Issar
Founder CEO, Caregiver Saathi
Bhavana now the Founder & CEO of a social venture Caregiver Saathi (http://caregiversaathi.co.in) which enables the well-being of family caregivers through a variety of support services.
She is a passionate person with diverse interests. After her corporate stint in HR, she is an Organisation consultant in the area of Change, Leadership Development and Organisation Building. She is a Fellow and facilitator in Process Work with Sumedhas Academy for Human Context, Gestalt OD Practitioner. She's been visiting faculty at IIM Ahmedabad, IIM Udaipur, TISS, School of Planning and Architecture.
Her story was included in the book by bestselling author Rashmi Bansal - "Touch the Sky: Stories of women across India who are changing their destiny".
She is a motorcyclist and believes motorcycling has helped her push the boundaries of the body and mind. She supports women motorcyclists to realise their dreams.
Meenakshi Krishnan
Research Officer, Institute of Development Studies, UK
Meenakshi brings 20 years of experience in organisation development and leadership consulting. She has worked in both corporate and not-for-profit spaces on designing and facilitating interventions for women’s leadership development, creating gender inclusive workplaces, articulating organizational vision and culture, deploying strategic HR processes, and coaching for personal effectiveness.
She has independently designed and delivered workshops for audiences in Bahrain, Canada, India, Nigeria, Singapore and the UAE.
Meenakshi holds double Masters degrees in Personnel Management and Industrial Relations from XLRI, Jamshedpur as well as in Women and Gender Studies from IGNOU, New Delhi. She is currently pursuing Doctoral research at the Institute of Development Studies (IDS), a world leading research think tank based at the University of Sussex in the UK. Her research interests focus on gender equality, women’s economic empowerment, care work, and public policy.
Shreya Bhagwanth
Asia Total Rewards and Services Leader, Inclusion Champion
Shreya Bhagwanth currently works with 3M as the Asia Total Rewards and Services Leader and Inclusion Champion. Prior to this role, she led the Human Resources function in 3M India.
Shreya holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Arts (Economics) from University of Mumbai and an MBA in HR from XLRI Jamshedpur. With 20 + years of work experience in various HR roles, Shreya is an experienced HR leader with expertise in areas of HR Strategy Formulation, Strategic Business Partnering, Leadership Development, Talent Management, Compensation and Benefits, Diversity and Inclusion, Development Frameworks, Compensation and Benefits, Employer Brand Management and Workforce Planning.
Shreya began her career with Hindustan Unilever Limited. She had an entrepreneurial stint in leadership development and talent development. Subsequently she worked with leading organizations such as Aditya Birla Group and Siemens.
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. On the personal front, Shreya is married to Mahesh and they have two teenage children, Akriti and Dhruv.
Shreya is passionate about the difference and impact that HR makes in an organization and enabling / mentoring women with their Career Intentionality.
Deepika Zingade
HR Vice President APAC, Swiss Re International
Deepika is a senior HR practitioner, executive coach and DEI champion who has over two decades of experience as an HR business partner and advisor in the APAC Region. She has particularly enjoyed leading HR transformation projects and change management efforts in organizations, driving value-based business outcomes through learning and development, talent management and mentoring diverse talent pools across the world. She has experience working across Technology, Consulting, Banking, Insurance and FMCG sectors with large multinational organisations.
She is certified in several psychometric instruments and is an ACTA certified trainer under the WSQ framework in Singapore.
She completed her Masters in PM&IR from XLRI Jamshedpur in 1999 and graduated in Human Development with a major in Early Childhood Education from Mumbai University.
up! SURGE Facilitators April 2022!
Shabari Madappa
Leadership Facilitator & Executive Coach
Shabari is a trained Facilitator, Executive Coach and OD consultant with nearly 30 years of experience in the corporate world.
Shabari works extensively with leaders and teams across different cultures - Asia, EMEA, Australia, USA. Her work aims to help leaders enhance their human sensitivity, potential and learning agility in middle & senior leadership roles to better support their result and business orientation.
Between 1992 and 2008: Shabari held senior leadership roles with Indian and multinational firms in the telecommunications and semiconductor industry; with Texas Instruments and Sasken Communication Technologies Ltd in Bangalore. I’ve also worked with the Maharaja Group of Companies (Colombo, Sri Lanka) heading their Training function. She began her career in 1992 with the HR function at Titan Industries, a TATA group company.
Since 2008:Shabari's experience as an entrepreneur includes running a successful chain of restaurants for over 5 years.
As a Leadership Consultant :
- Design and facilitation of learning experiences (virtual and in-person sessions) for mid to senior level leaders. Several learning journeys are a blend of training and 1:1 coaching
- Facilitate team conversations around road mapping, collaboration, institution building
- Design and delivery of Assessment and Development centres
- Executive Coach for leaders in 1:1, group & team coaching environments
Clients are from the technology industry, consumer goods, healthcare, energy & petro-chemicals industry and financial sectors.
Diversity, Equity & Inclusion
Shabari works with clients to help create a more gender balanced workforce primarily through
- workshops for leadership teams
- design and delivery of learning experiences for women leaders
- inclusion diagnostics and surveys
She holds a leadership role as Vice-President of XL4W (XLRI for Women, an alumni chapter) which has a singular focus of improving the participation of women in the workforce in India.
Anuradha Rai
Founding Director, People Worth Pte Ltd,
​
Anuradha Rai has twenty years of senior corporate experience spanning leadership roles in New York, Singapore and London. Her skill sets cross a unique intersection of People, Strategy & Transformation disciplines across diverse industries. Today, Anuradha is the Founding Director of People Worth Pte Ltd, a Leadership and Organizational Transformation practice based out of Singapore. Her clients are largely Fortune 500 firms with engagements on coaching leadership teams through organizational transformations, Leadership Developmentand Cultural Change. Anuradha also acts as a retained advisor to Singapore based investor platforms for
market ready start-ups.
In her corporate career, Anuradha was most recently with Credit Suisse with eleven years in global/ regional leadership roles based out of New York & Singapore. As head of People & Change, she led the organizational restructure, leadership transformation and skills shift for a +7000 Division’s transformation from Production to Service orientation. While at Credit Suisse, Anuradha also led workforce strategy for +12000 employee division.This included assessing talent markets in EMEA/ AM and APAC to define a location strategy for the bank, optimising workforce composition and preparing the workforce to be future ready through strategic skill investments. In this role, Anuradha also led a multiyear and award-winning Cultural Change Transformation to shift culture and behaviours, running culture assessments, coaching leaders and aligning organizational reward mechanisms to drive behavioural change. Prior to her global roles, Anuradha led regional talent development for APAC for +3000 division with the bank. She also headed the regional Diversity & Inclusion Council with an ambitious agenda to move the needle on D&I by removing institutionalised biases and an increased investment infemale talent. In addition to her time in financial services Anuradha has also had a successful four-year stint with Pfizer in the UK, and at Nestle, India where she started her career.
Anuradha holds a post graduate degree in Human Resources from XLRI (India) and a Bachelors (Honours) degree in Psychology from Lady Shri Ram College. She is a certified facilitator with accreditation in a number of organizational inventories, psychometric and Cultural Change tools. Shehas won several awards for Strategy Development and research papers. Anuradha is an active Diversity & Inclusion champion holding significant leadership positions in D&I forums and sponsor to women across industries. Anuradha lives in Singapore where she relocated from New York in 2020.
Nirupama Subramanian
Facilitator, Consultant, Motivational Speaker, Executive Coach
​
Nirupama Subramanian is a Consultant, Facilitator and Coach( P.C.C accreditation) in the area of Leadership Development, Change Management and Personal Transformation with over 25 years of work experience. She is committed to helping people discover their potential and lead their lives with passion and purpose. She focuses on ensuring personal growth along with business impact through customized interventions for organizations through her firm Powerfulife Solutions.
Nirupama is a keen advocate for the development and representation of women in leadership positions. She is the cofounder of GLOW- Growing Leadership of Women that supports women to lead with their whole being and helps to create inclusive workspaces.
Nirupama holds a Masters degree in Management from XLRI Jamshedpur and an undergraduate degree in commerce. She has worked with Citibank in the area of Corporate Banking. She was then the General manager and Director for AchieveGlobal India. Nirupama has also worked as a Senior Training Consultant with Genpact( then GE Capital Financial Services)
Nirupama has been working as a leadership coach and facilitator with Mckinsey/Aberkyn since 2010. During this time, she has engaged on a variety on interventions on long term transformation engagements, top team alignment and Personal Transformation interventions across several countries.
Nirupama has worked with over 75 top tier organizations like Tata Motors, Sap Labs, Sanofi India, Uber, Godrej, GE, SoftwareOne, EXL, Amazon among others to design and deliver over 800 leadership development interventions to over 20,000 employees.
Other Interests:
Nirupama is a published author of two bestselling novels- Keep The Change and Intermission.She has written on a variety of subjects for several publications including national papers like The Times of India and Hindustan Times. She currently blogs at www.shethepeople.tv on the theme of Women at work . Her third book, Powerful- The Indian Woman’s Guide to Unlocking her full potential been published in July 2021.
Nirupama loves to travel and visited 48 countries across Asia, Europe and America. She still has a long list of places to go. She combines her love of writing and travel and often contributes travel articles to National Geographic Traveler.
Nirupama is the co-founder of My Daughter is Precious, a not-for- profit initiative which funds and mentors underprivileged girls to complete higher education and become job ready. www.mydaughterisprecious.com
She is a regular yoga practitioner and is currently also focusing on strength training. Nirupama lives in Gurgaon.
Jayashree Braganza (Marakini)
Executive Coach, Psychotherapist, Facilitator, Mentor
​
Jayashree Marakini Braganza is an Executive Coach (ICF - PCC), Psychotherapist, Seasoned Facilitator and Mentor. She co-founded Chrysalyst with the aim to support people be their best version. Chrysalyst offers the right balance of nurture and nudge to empower and transform individuals and organizations. Jayashree straddles several domains with ease and works with clients across the globe.
​
Jayashree is a strong mental health advocate and has an active psychotherapy practice. Her mission is to destigmatise therapy. She believes that seeking therapy should be as convenient as a visit to a GP.
In her roles as a Coach and Mentor Jayashree combines her corporate experience across multiple departments with her expertise in human transformation. She enjoys partnering with individuals eager to do the inner work required to be a transformational leader. She is also empanelled with several incubators as a Coach, Counsellor and Facilitator for their cohorts.
Jayashree is an advocate for the transformational power of Coaching and volunteers her time in leadership roles at International Coaching Federation (ICF). She is the Vice President of the Board of Directors at ICF Bengaluru and the Ambassador at ICF’s Global Community of Practice for Group and Team Coaching. She endeavours to demystify coaching for individuals and support Coaches in their learning and practice.
Jayashree is passionate about championing and enabling Equity and Inclusion for all – across all genders & sexualities and across physical & neurological diversities. She carves out time to support three distinct groups – Women, Queer communities and families of neuro-diverse children.
Jayashree is an Alumnus of XLRI (batch of 1999) and has a bachelor’s degree in psychology. She brings with her 20 years of experience across sales, marketing, operations, consulting & L&D, in Titan Company, Marico Limited, Dairy Farm International and Imagin8ors, amongst others.
​
Devika Dharmaraj
Mental Health &
HR Consultant
​
Devika Dharmaraj has been working in the field of Human Resources since 1992 and has worked in different capacities, as a senior manager and as an independent consultant. Devika has worked across manufacturing, IT and ITES, social enterprise and the not-for-profit sectors. Her professional experience includes extensive work with companies based across the UK and US. She has trained in non-violent communication and is a certified HR competency assessor as well as an Accredited Instructor in Standard Mental Health First Aid. She completed her post-graduation in management from XLRI, Jamshedpur and is a certified executive coach.
In her first job with Eicher Ltd, Devika was part of the team that orchestrated the
integration of Royal Enfield with Eicher. Devika went on to handle independent
consulting assignments with companies like Pepsico and Chennai-based
manufacturing organizations.
She was part of the senior management team at Tranquilmoney, a healthcare
receivables management company. Devika has worked in the non-profit sector and
in 2009 was part of the founding team of the Joy of Giving Week, now called
DaanUtsav, a national movement that has gained momentum and a life of
its own over the years.
​
As a co-founder and director at Kelsa Solutions until late 2020, Devika’s
experience with people processes,organization design and leadership
development has helped to build a sound reputation for the company in these
areas. Her particular strength in the area of competency frameworks is further
leveraged by a certification in HR competency assessment with XLRI, CII and
the National NHRD Network.
Devika’s increasing concern for the impact of health on individual and corporate
performance has led her to begin a journey to explore corporate India’s response to
increasing issues of mental health at the workplace. She was a core team member of
NHRD’s MindMatters campaign to raise awareness on mental health with over 110
participant companies. She has trained as an Instructor in Standard Mental Health
First Aid with the globally acclaimed MHFA protocols, and supports MHFA India in
providing ongoing support to trained First Aiders in select organizations.
​
Patricia Mathais
Head - Gender Platform, 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 support from the Gates Foundation, the Asia Gender Network is a growing group of female philanthropists committed to changing the future for Asian women and girls- individually and through collaboration. Members of AGN commit time and capital to causes which improve outcomes for women and girls, are rooted in regional expertise, and offer locally relevant solutions.
​
Patricia has experience in both for profit and not for profit organizations, most recently serving as the CEO for Magic Bus Singapore and SouthEast Asia, a charity that helps lift children out of poverty. During her four year tenure, Patricia led strategy planning and fundraising for the region, and established local operations for Magic Bus in Myanmar.
​
Previously, Patricia spent 20 years with Procter & Gamble where she held marketing and leadership roles and was responsible for multiple brands across various consumer goods categories. She has lived in India, Singapore, Malaysia and China.
Patricia holds her MBA from XLRI Jamshedpur, and is a graduate from Mt Carmel College, Bangalore/ Bangalore University.
​
Sangeetha Rajalakshmi
Head Human Resources, Tyson Foods International
​
Sangeetha Rajalakshmi is a global HR leader, currently the HR Head for Tyson Foods Asia. She was earlier Head of HR Asia for Whirlpool Corp. based out of Hong Kong. Prior to that she worked with Unilever (13 years, India & UK), HSBC Bank (2 years, India), ABN AMRO Bank (2 years, India) and GlaxoSmithKline Consumer healthcare limited (5 years, India). She has experience in HR partnering , Capability and Leadership development, change management and transformation.
Her passions are in helping people understand themselves - being aware of and loving their real selves as well as helping businesses grow. She is curious about the nature of kindness and emotional vulnerability and channeling this for growth. An alumnus of XLRI (batch of 99) PMIR, she has a bachelor's degree in English and Journalism.
In her spare time, when she has some she can be found with her nose in a book with a cup of tea alongside her. She and her banker husband manage a long distance family spread across 5 countries, including a daughter studying to be a Materials engineer and a 12 years old son who is her investment adviser.
Shubha Kasi
Freelance - Leadership Development
Shubha’s journey in HR has been one of unlearning, as much as it has been of learning. Like many before and after her, she chose to work in HR because she enjoyed being with and helping people. Two years at XLRI (PMIR, 1992) quickly disabused her of the notion that HR people need only to “like people”. The depth and range of the science behind the HR function fascinated her and reaffirmed her interest in the discipline.
Her experience in the line HR function started with Gulf Oil in Mumbai in 1992 where she was a part of the team that set up the Personnel function, the plant at Silvassa, and processes across the organisation. Dealing with the hard rules, and difficult conversations with employees and managers opened her eyes to the fact that not much about HR is “nice”! Crossing the floor to consulting, she had worked on her own, and with Cerebrus Consulting. Her biggest learning in this stint was the ability to encapsulate her work in terms of value to another person and to the organisation – a key skill for HR!
A graduate degree in Statistics (St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai, 1989) helped in her role in setting up and building the Research & Development function at Mercer over a 7-year period. This role, combining the domain expertise of compensation and benefits, with analytics and research skills, and the need to sell one’s product through a network of consultants, was unlike any other HR role, and gave her a unique perspective on working across various countries in the Asia-Pacific region. A key takeaway here was that a consulting solution must be in the language of the team needing the solution, not the consultant providing it. This insight drove her to seek senior roles to walk the talk in line HR.
Next was a stint of five years, managing multiple roles across India and Tunisia at SunGard, based in Bangalore. This role encompassed Performance, Compensation & Rewards, and HR Operations. For personal health reasons she then moved to Chennai and joined TNQ Technology to head HR, in Chennai, where she brought together her business skills with HR depth to help drive the organisation through a period of intense growth and change. The rationalisation of roles across business and HR to ensure each plays to their strengths, the professionalisation of the HR function, creating platforms and channels for employee voices, the identification and establishing another centre in a new location were all interesting steps along her journey at TNQ. Two highlights external to the HR function were building the Language Editing Training function and creating an online learning framework at TNQ. The Integrated Learning Framework is still a work in progress.
From Jan 2022, she has been on her own, working on select assignments in transformation and talent optimisation. She advises on how organisations can help individuals achieve and expand their potential and impact within professional environments.
Aparna Ponappa
Founder - REDD Network
​
Passionate about inspiring people to expand their capabilities and becoming
their best selves through workshops and engaging interactions, Aparna is an
alumnus of XLRI, with a formal education in Human Resource Management
(PGDPMIR). Other than subjects in HRM she majored in Business
Communication and Strategy.
A key project that she led, was the provision of staples for those most effected
by the Covid 19 lockdown in Bangalore and has been instrumental in getting
across food ration kits that impacted over 11,00,000 individuals and counting,
under the name of Covid Relief Bangalore, TN and Karnataka. This led to the creation of an organization called Mission Vishwas that looks at livelihood creation, she is a director with the foundation. She also spearheaded the creation and management of a Covid Care Isolation Facility for the poor of Bangalore and is associated with numerous initiatives as an advisor and coach.
She has also conducted over a 100 successful online sessions with audience sizes ranging from 10 to 650, covering learning journeys, competency building workshops and thematic learning sessions.
She started her career in HR and was heading the training function for the South Based Operationsof Grindwell Norton – Saint Gobain and quickly moved to heading all of the HR functions for 7 businesses of the Company’s South-Based Operations.
Post that she made a career switch and joined the Retail team of Titan Industries Limited. Here she headed the training and customer experience function for the Watches – Retail Business pioneering many retail training practices and also creating and conducting a unique and innovative retail frontline assessment centre called Face of Titan. From Titan she moved to Himalaya Drug Company where she headed the retail business and was instrumental in bringing a positive impact on the bottom-line of the division by leading a team-restructuring initiative, renegotiating terms of trade with all the franchisees of the company and introducing new below-the-line marketing initiatives for the Company. She then moved to Levi’s and introduced many customer delight initiatives for the new concept of Levi Flagship Stores and managed what was then one of the most successful End-of-Season sales. Her last employment was with Reliance Retail when the formats for Reliance Retail were still on the drawing board. She was part of the team working on the launch of the first Hyper Store and managed marketing for the categories – Books, Music, Movies, Toys, Stationery, Sporting Goods and Fitness Equipment - across all formats of Reliance Retail. She worked on the launch of the first Reliance Jewels store and finally went on to lead marketing for Reliance TimeOut and led the function for 20 stores.
In 2010 she started her own consulting firm called REDD Network which provides consulting, training, design and workshops in the field of Leadership and Performance Management for corporate. The mission of REDD Network is to be the premier provider of sales and service- focused consulting & COMPETENCY BUILDING SERVICES.
On the personal front, she is married and has one son and splits her time between Bangalore and Coorg, when she is not travelling on work. She actively pursues her interest in painting and NLP. She is one of the key members of Beautiful Bengaluru (now called Beautiful Bharat) – a citizen’s movement with a clean, green, safe city agenda. She is the president of the Bangalore Alumni Chapter of XLRI (term ending in 2021), the oldest business school in India. She is the founding member of XL4W and CGEIL – working towards increasing the participation of Indian women in
the workforce. She is currently also working with DDI and Interweave on a host of management and leadership programs as a senior consultant and works with Prajna Wisdom Foundation on bringing innovative workshops to a larger audience. She is also a Trustee with Diya Ghar that brings pre-primary education to the children of some of the poorest migrant families in Bangalore.
Sangeetha Rajan
Co-Founder - The Arts Quotient (TAQ)
​
A powerhouse of talent, skills and experience, Sangeetha combines her expertise as a qualified psychologist, a people development professional and an Indian classical dancer to bring rich, multi-disciplinary insights into TAQ. She holds a Masters in Psychology, an LLB, a PGD in PM&IR from XLRI and a PhD from TISS.Her experience in people development began with roles at Maruti and ICICI Bank and spans nearly two decades in learning and psychometrics.
​
She is certified to use Hogan Assessments, Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and SHL’s OPQ and ability tests. Sangeetha is the recipient of the Shringar Mani title for excellence in Odissi dance, was nominated to the International Council for Dance (CID-UNESCO) in 2013, was nominated for Best Choreography at the Mahindra Excellence in Theatre Awards 2018, and is leading a new generation of dancers at the Urban Temple Dance Repertory.
​
Along with co-founder Swati Apte, she draws on principles, practices, skills and perspectives from the arts to create transformative art-based learning experiences at TAQ.
Aparna Verma
Free lancer - Leadership Development
​
Aparna, post qualification , pursued full time work for 15 years in the country. In the course of her active career, she held leadership positions in functional HR as well as HR consulting. Her workplaces include Asian Paints, ICICI group, Marico, Mercer India and SHL India.
A family relocation to Singapore in 2015 and an unanticipated career pause, encouraged her to reassess and pivot her professional pathway.
She believes that individual potential is fully realised, only ever through positive adjustments and determined resilience in life and its choices . She is now training to be a mental health counsellor, and pursuing a Master's degree in Counselling from Monash University (Australia). This stands to enrich her HR expertise, with a deeper and a more empathetic understanding of a person's pinnacles and pitfalls, beyond performance at work.
Deepa Bhat
Organisational change, Leadership development, Consultant, Coach
​
Deepa's work is centered around building organizational and leadership capability through consulting, facilitation and coaching. She has over 25 years of experience, in HR consulting, training, competency development and assessment centers and performance management. Deepa offers bespoke and customized solutions for clients, that are focused on their needs.
Deepa is a certified Marshall Goldsmith Stakeholder Centered Coach, certified in Hogan Psychometrics, LSIP(large scale interactive process) and an ICF and EMCC certified coach. Her consulting experience includes designing and facilitating interventions for leadership development, training and facilitation, team effectiveness, competency development, assessment centers.
​
She blends her coach training with her extensive experience in leadership development and human behaviour to create a coaching experience that enables clients to make the shift from where they are to where they want to be.
up! SURGE Facilitators 2021!
up! SURGE Facilitators 2021!
Facilitators
