Speaker Bio:  

Shirodkar VS
Vice President Human Resources , General Motors India
Shirodkar is VP for General Motors, INDIA. He had done his Fellowship in PM & IR Indian Institute of Management Calcutta. He had Received training on HRD practices in ICI, UK & J & J USA and on Assessment Centres in Singapore. Widely traveled in US, Europe, South East Asia as well as Australia to study HR policies & trends. And also Awarded “Innovative HR Practices that drive Business Results” National recognition at hands of President of India. And Named in Hot 40 HR Superstars in Asia by HCA, Singapore Conferred the INDIRA Super Achiever Award 2007.
Gajendra Chandel
President & Head - Group Human Resources, TATA AutoComp Systems Ltd
Chandel holds a Post Graduate Diploma in Management. He also holds a Masters degree in Public Administration and a Post Graduate Diploma in Labour Laws.He joined Tata AutoComp in July 2005 and since then has been actively involved in all strategic growth initiatives of this dynamic auto-component conglomerate.
Soumi Alphons
Head - Human Resources, SAS Research and Development
In a professional career spanning 18 years, Soumi Alphons has passionately advocated change and innovation. Soumi Alphons has been leading the Human Resources team in SAS R&D India; responsible for developing and guiding SAS&rsquot; HR vision and articulating the organization&rsquot;s strategy to support and grow the R&D center in India. Today India R&D center is a key development center for SAS and focuses on more than 16 products and solution, strategic for SAS’ customers. SAS is a well-known leader organization in the business analytics space for the last 35 years; also known well as one of the Great Places to Work for in India and the world. Besides her role in India, Soumi has made significant contribution to SAS’ Worldwide Global Career Framework in the role of a Program Manager; a framework that is poised to drive career development in all job functions in SAS. As a support to the professional community, Soumi has been sharing expertize and insights in the Indian and international forums and been an active member in driving learning exchanges for a thriving HR Infotech forum in Pune. Prior to joining SAS, Soumi has been associated with I-Gate Patni and Kinetic Engineering. Soumi has received her Bachelor’s degree in Chemistry from Fergusson college and has topped the Management degree in Human Resources from Symbiosis Institute of Business Management.
Nayana Prabhu
Lead Consultant CHRD, Wipro
Nayana’s , experience spans across human resource development, her area of expertise is in enabling people managers to become Talent Champions and build effective, successful and powerful teams. Prior to joining WIPRO, Nayana, has worked in the ITES, manufacturing and IT industry. (Thermax , Satyam and EXL Service) Over the last decade she has been responsible for setting up and driving the processes for leadership and management development. Nayana has worked on assignments in leadership development, culture building, building talent and facilitating career design. She has launched mentor programmes , developed mentors in organizations, coached senior leaders to develop talent within their teams and initiated the ‘managers as coaches’ movement in organizations. She believes that every leader through experience develops a teachable point of view and should have opportunities to share this with young and upcoming leaders. In all the organizations that Nayana worked with, she initiated the “train the trainer” process and created large teams of trainers to facilitate learning. Nayana’s special area of interest has been ‘teams’ and especially facilitating peer team interventions and encouraging a collaborative way of working as well as learning. Nayana has a post graduation in Personnel Management from the Symbiosis Institute of Business Management. She is a practioner of MBTI, FIRO-B and PAPI. She has completed a 3 Phase Internship in Process Work at the Indian Society for Individual and Social Development.
Ganesh Natarajan
Vice Chairman and CEO, Zensar Technologies
Natarajan is Vice Chairman & CEO of Zensar Technologies, a global firm that transforms Technology and Processes for Fortune 500 companies. He is also President of the IT Sector and a member of the Management Board of the 3.25 billion USD RPG Group. He is the current Chairman of CII’s National Committee and ITES and a member of the Chairmen’s Council of NASSCOM. A Gold medalist in Mechanical Engineering and Industrial Engineering, Ganesh a doctoral degree in Knowledge Management from IIT Bombay. He is the author of four McGraw Hill publications on Business Process reengineering and Knowledge Management and a regular columnist in India’s leading business and technology magazines. He serves on the Board of Global Talent Track, Asia’s pioneering venture in Technology enabled Skills development and is a member of the Board of Governors of NITIE Mumbai. Ganesh was named &rsquot;CEO of the Year&rsquot; by the Asia Pacific HR Conference in 1999 and received the Wisitex Foundation’s &rsquot;CEO of the Decade–Knowledge Award&rsquot; from India’s Minister for Information Technology in 2000. In July 2005, he received the Asia HRD Congress Award for Contributions to the Organisation through HR. Ganesh was recognized by Ernst & Young in 2005 Award for exceptional entrepreneurship and in November 2010, awarded the ‘Outstanding Entrepreneurship Award 2010’ by Enterprise Asia.
Sharad Gangal
Executive Vice President HR, Admin, IR and Member of Exec Council, Thermax
Sharad is a post graduate in HR with basic qualifications in Commerce and Law. Sharad started his career with Asian Paints and then moved on to Boehringer Mannheim a German Pharma Company. In 1996, Sharad joined Cadbury India Ltd at their Head office. At the time of leaving Cadbury Sharad was responsible for Employee Relations, Organizational Effectiveness and Compensation Strategy. During his tenure at Cadbury he also had a stint with the Cadbury Schweppes business in Australia. He joined HDFC Standard Life in 2007 to Head HR where he was responsible for Human Resources, L&D and Sales Training. Employee Engagement & Change Management are his areas of specialization. Currently associated with Thermax as Executive Vice President – HR, IR & Admin and Member of the Executive Council. Sharad is also on the Academic Council of Symbiosis International Business Management School and teaches courses in Performance Management & Organizational Design.
Abhay Valsangkar
CAO and Head HR , Avaya-India
Abhay Valsangkar is the Chief Administrative Officer and Head of HR of Avaya India. In this role, Abhay provides guidance and support to corporate functions such as Human Resources, IT, Global Sourcing Organisation, Avaya Real Estate, Legal, and Security. Abhay brings with him close to 3 decades of experience of working in India as well as international locations. Some of the significant organizations he has been associated with are: American Express, Citicorp, ICI, Cadbury’s, Tata Group and Symantec. In his long professional career spanning domestic and global assignments, he has played key roles in managing organizational transformations, building workplace cultures, enabling organizational growth initiatives and establishing globally deployable strategic processes. Abhay is an Economics graduate of Bombay University and a post-graduate in Personnel Management and Industrial Relations from Tata Institute of Social Sciences. He also holds a Law degree from the Bombay University.
Kaushik Mitter
Director-Human Resources, Honeywell Automation India Ltd
Kaushik looks after HR for Honeywell Automation India Ltd. a leading provider of integrated automation and software solutions. The company is a subsidiary of Honeywell, a Fortune 100 company that has a presence in over 100 countries and with approx 122,000 employees worldwide. Kaushik is new to Honeywell having joined them in the month of November 2011. Most recently, Kaushik was with Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories Ltd. where he headed HR for all Emerging Markets. He was responsible for nearly 6500 associates based across geographies like India, Russia & CIS, Romania, China, ANZ, South Africa & LATAM among others. Prior to joining Dr. Reddy&rsquot;s, Kaushik was associated with Tata Sons Ltd. where as a member of Group Human Resources, he worked on rolling out HR initiatives across the Tata Group. Kaushik earlier worked as an engagement manager with the HR consulting practices of Arthur Andersen and Ernst and Young (E&Y) where he managed client assignments in industries ranging from Telecom & ITES to Healthcare. Kaushik began his career from campus with Maruti Suzuki where he spent the first eight years of his career in various Marketing & Sales roles. He is a PGDPM&IR from XLRI Jamshedpur and an MA in Economics from JNU.
Kishor Bhalerao
Vice President - HR, Persistent Systems
Kishor Bhalerao is currently the SVP HR of Persistent. His expertise is in Human Resource Management, Interpersonal Relationships and Behavioural Science which spans over 38 years (of which he has worked as Head of H R for over 28 years).Prior to Persistent he was with Tata Burroughs / Unisys / Infotech – SVP HR, Mastek - Group SVP HR, Shaw Wallace ,MICO – BOSCH, Pfizer. Under his leadership, Mastek became the 1st Organisation in the world to get PCMM Level 3. He is /was actively associated with several esteemed professional and educational organizations like - Syllabus committee member- University of Mumbai, Visiting faculty - University of Pune, C. D. Deshmukh Inst. for Careers-Thane (IAS students), Symbiosis- Pune, Maharashtra Institute of Labour Studies- Mumbai, The Indian Society for Training and Development, National Institute of Personnel Management, Bombay Management Association, Founder Office bearer of HR InfoTech Association, Founder office bearer of HR TechNet and Past President - Rotary Club. He is a graduate in Psychology and has a masters degree in Personnel Management.
Dhruv Desai
SR. Vice President - HR & Training, Angel Broking
With a rich experience of more than 11 years, Mr. Desai has led Training & Learning initiatives across various industries successfully. His exposure to the Financial, BPO, Aviation, and Telecom industries has given him the opportunity to implement several innovative HR practices. As a Six Sigma Black Belt, he had been associated with Quality Management initiatives in various reputed corporates like Sitel India Pvt. Ltd., Intelenet Global Services and Reliance Infocomm (Infostream). His experience spans numerous functions like HRD, Training & Learning Management, Operations Planning, International Marketing, and Financial Services. As a Sr. Vice President of the Angel Group of companies, Desai manages two key functions: Corporate Human Resources and Training. Angel Broking is one of the leading and fastest growing Retail Stock Broking organizations in the country and known as a pioneer in the industry for its innovative HR and people-centric initiatives. Desai heads a team of 60 and leads the Group’s Learning & Development, and Human Resources initiatives for over 5200 employees.
Bhavesh Chandaria
General Manager & Head HR, Suzlon Energy
Bhavesh Chandaria is General Manager & Head HR at Suzlon energy. He is GPHR certified, HR enthusiast, his cross functional experience in HR includes , FMCG, manufacturing, financial services, Sales and Academic industries in India, U.K. and East Africa. He is also specialized in Employee Engagement, Employee Communication, Recruitment, Leveraging IT in HR, Facilitation. Earlier he worked for Bidco Oil Refineries, Kenya as a Head HR.
Shashank Bhushan
Sr. Director-HR and COO, BMC Software
With an experience of over 16 years in HR, he had worked across a wide spectrum of industries like the Media & Entertainment, Consumer Electronics, Engineering and Information Technology and have had in depth exposure to almost all the areas of Human Resources with a focus on being a HR generalist.
D. Prasanth Nair
President & Head – HR & Financial Services, Thomas Cook Group
President & Head – HR & Financial Services, Thomas Cook Group D.Prasanth Nair, 41, holds a Bachelor&rsquot;s Degree in Mechanical Engineering from Calicut University. Thereafter he did his doctorate from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, specializing in Human Resources Management. He was conferred the degree for his Doctoral Research on "The organizational and human issues in mergers and acquisitions". He started his career in the engineering field with GEC Alsthom India Limited. Post his Doctoral studies, he had been associated with the Human Resources function in the RPG Group and Wockhardt. He joined Thomas Cook (India) Limited in May 2005. Currently, he is President & Head – Human Resources & Financial Services and is responsible for the Human Resources function in India, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Mauritius. Additionally he is responsible for the Insurance distribution business, the Center of Learning initiative, Service Quality and Corporate Social Responsibility. Nair has contributed papers and articles to various magazines and journals. And he is a member of the Thomas Cook Group HR Directors Forum and the Thomas Cook Group Sustainability Working Party. Nair has been active in various industry forums like the Bombay Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Bombay Management Association. Additionally he serves on the Board of Studies at some of the Institutes such as the Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies, K J Somaiya Institute of Management Studies and Research, and Pondicherry University.
Mangesh Kulkarni
Vice President – Human Resources & Employee Relations , Piaggio Vehicles
Mangesh Kulkarni is a Graduate Engineer with Masters in Financial Management from Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies. Mumbai. He has completed an Executive Program in Human Resources Management from XLRI. He has over 19 years experience across functions in the Automobile Industry. He started his career in line functions and moved in human resource development function. In his career span he has implemented various human resource development processes viz. Talent Management, Performance Management, Focused organization Development interventions etc. He has rich & valuable experience of implementing Policy Management process of TQM across a large organization. His passion is implementation of strategic HR initiatives to enable effectiveness of business functions. He has certifications in various Psychometric tools. The longest association in his career has been with Mahindra and Mahindra Limited. In his current assignment he is Vice President – Human Resources & Employee Relations at Piaggio Vehicles Pvt. Ltd.
Richa Pande
Business HR Head – Horizontals, IGatepatni
At iGatepatni, her role has been in Business HR function. She is also heading the Location HR. Has joined iGate Patni is 2003 and has a varied experience of 19 years as academician, management consultant and practicing manager. A PhD in Organization Behaviour, she was working in Ernst & Young earlier.
Unmesh Pawar
Senior Vice President, HR, Accenture India BPO
Unmesh Pawar has over 17 years of HR experience across domains like Information Technology and Services industry. He is currently the Senior Vice President, Human Resources, Accenture India BPO. As the Talent Management Lead for Accenture in India, Unmesh has been instrumental in enabling the organization shape its Human Capital transformation by building a high performance culture through differentiated leadership and people capabilities.
Yogesh Patgaonkar
Executive Vice President - HR, Zensar Technologies
Yogesh is Executive Vice President -HR at Zensar Technologies, a global firm that transforms Technology and Processes for Fortune 500 companies. He holds a Masters Degree in Management from the University of Mumbai with a specialization in HR. Yogesh spent the close to two decades of his career with the IT industry in various capacities of an Human Resource Professional, Entrepreneur as well as Profit Centre Head Yogesh joined Zensar in April 2003 as Global Head of HR. During his stint the associate strength grew 3 times and the engagement score was 82%. After heading HR for 3 years, he moved on to head Profit Centre for India, Middle, East and Africa business for Zensar. In his leadership the region saw aggressive revenue growth as well as key customers acquisitions for Zensar. In 2009 Yogesh moved to RPG Group Headquarters and handled various assignments including Talent acquisition, Leadership Development as well as Performance Management System. Effective 2011 Yogesh has taken over the mandate to lead Global HR function at Zensar. Prior to Zensar, Yogesh worked with Mphasis BFL as Regional Head HR and Mafatlal Group as Head HR for IT business. He is also associated with Industry Associations as well as leading management institutes in capacity of an advisory board member.
Pervin Dumasia
Head HR, KKCL
Ms. Pervin. D. Dumasia is a Post- Graduate in Business Management and has more than 20 years of experience in HR functions. She has worked with a wide variety of clients in varied industries- both nationally and internationally, in the capacity of a consultant. Currently, she is the Head - HR of Kewal Kiran Clothing Limited (Killer, Lawman, Easies, Integriti, Addictions), since the past three years. Besides being a professional woman, she is also an educationist, a writer and a poetess, and has many published articles (on various social issues) to her credit. She excels in the field of Public Speaking and is the recipient of many awards, including the Mumbai University Gold Medal for the same. She has also hosted many shows and events. She is the recipient of the prestigious “Women Super Achiever Award” and the “HR Warrior Award”, for excellence in HR practices. Having vast experience in various HR functions, she firmly believes that HR is “Gods Work” and a good HR personnel, will work from the “heart”, along with the “head”. She believes in the philosophy that one must concentrate on increasing the “happiness quotient” in the Organisation, as “happy” employees are “productive” employees and productivity leads to eventual increase in profits and goodwill. The ideology of her life is “to try and make a difference to the world in which we are born” and her professional philosophy is “there is no excellence without labour”.
Nagesh Kumar
VP – Employee Relations and Personnel Admin, Bharat Forge
Nagesh S. Kumar studied in Pune. B.A ( Economices), LL.B, LL.M from University of Pune. Joined Govt. Of Maharashtra in Labour Department thro Maharashtra Public Service Commission. Worked for 15 years. Joined Glaxosmithkline Pharmaceutical Ltd.,Head P & A for Nashik works. Moved to Applicomp India Ltd. green field project at Bangalore. Worked for 8 years as Head H.R and Employee Relations. At present Bharat Forge Ltd. Pune as Vice President –Employee Relations and Personnel Admin. Presently Chairman of National Institute Of Personnel Management, Pune Chapter.
Abhay Patil
VP – Talent Management, Harbinger Group
Abhay is having extensive experience in software development, setting up of high-end and agile technology start-ups. Involved in education/ civic / literary/ social activism. Now part of the global leader Harbinger in it&rsquot;s journey to remain a "Learning Organization" as we position to leapfrog to the next level. Currently working as a vice president- Talent management with Harbinger Group.