Speaker Bio:  

Shekar Arora
Executive Director HR Strategy, Ashok Leyland
Shekar is a post Graduate in Personnel Management with specialization in Personnel Management and Industrial Relations, Mr. Arora joined Ashok Leyland in 1981. He has had considerable exposure to international academics and practices with more than 30 years of executive experience spanning a spectrum of industries: textile, chemical, steel and automobile. He has been contributing in areas of enhancing capabilities at both the organizational and individual levels and has introduced best practices in the area of industrial relations.
Rajeev B Bhatnagar
Vice President - HR, L&T Constructions
Bhatnagar is Vice President (Human Resources) in L&T Constructions. Presently, he is Head – HR for Metallurgical and Material Handling Independent Company (IC) of L&T and is a permanent invitee to the Board of Directors of this Independent Company (IC). This IC has a turnover exceeding US $ 1 billion and direct staff exceeding 5000. L&T Group has a turnover exceeding US $ 10 billion. He has well round experience of over 30 years in all aspects of HR functions in Private Sector, Public Sector as well as Multi National Companies. He has worked in four different organizations namely Bharat Earth Movers Ltd, Neyveli Lignite Corporation, M/s. Fujitsu of Japan and Larsen & Toubro Limited.
Mohan Kumar
President, NHRD Chennai Chapter
Mohan brings in over 26 years of rich experience. He has worked across the spectrum spanning different sectors and has also worked across the country-South, West, North and East. He has worked with companies like SRF, Levers, Sanmar Group, C.K.Birla Group Reliance and Cairn Energy. Prior to AM International, he headed HR for the Essar Energy Group based in Mumbai.He has been involved Organisational transformation and change management all along his career.He along with the strategic planning Head in the CK Birla Group, presented a paper in the HRD Network conference in 2000 on "Metamorphosing Corporations". Mohan was selected for a Senior Management Program in 2010 by the Swedish Government from India. Mohan is currently assists in the managing the assets of AM International Holdings in India
B V Prasad
Vice President –HR & IR , Pricol
B.V .Prasad is currently Vice President –HR & IR for Pricol Limited .Prasad has 24 years of experience in all aspects of Human resource management in various leading corporate houses such as Somany Group-Hindustan Sanitary ware &Industries ltd, Rane Group-Rane Brake linings Limited, BPL Group-BPL Eng Ltd, Murugappa Group-E I D Parry(I) Ltd, Saint Gobain Glass (I)Limited and Vibha Seeds Ltd. Prasad has the privilege to work totally in core manufacturing sectors and enjoyed independent charge in HR & IR Functions in most of the companies (Start up companies to 3 centuries old companies , Unionised and non unionized) and established latest people practices and implemented new models. Set standards by inspiring union leaders to take up developmental activities .Designed various interventions for building the organization culture ,change management ,high performance etc. HR Leader who understands the partnership with business for success. Hands on experience in various strategy deployment tools such as Balance score card,TPM, TQM, (JIPM Deming Award )lean Manufacturing system by CSC , Certified in HR competency by CII& XLRI &NHRD, Lead HR team to achieve CII HR Excellence Award. Prasad has gone through different experiential learning programs from various global consultants and has gained deep expertise in organization capability development, leadership, team performance assessment & Development.
Srimathi Shivashankar
Associate Vice President – Diversity & Sustainability, HCL Technologies
Srimathi has considerable experience in the areas of human capital strategy and diversity. Her core work areas in Human Capital include diversity and inclusion, employee engagement and retention, culture institutionalization, training and assessments, leadership development and counselling. Srimathi is one among the Future Leaders Team set up by World Business Council for Sustainability Development. She is a member of the advisory council of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), a working committee member of the Global Gender Parity Group of the World Economic Forum, and is an active member of the Diversity & Inclusion core committee of NASSCOM - India. Srimathi is a member of “WILL Mentoring Council” that brings together the collective thought-leadership of women from across companies in corporate India. She is the Co Chairperson for the CII Women Empowerment Council for Tamilnadu. She has assisted in preparing the first Affirmative Action Council report lead by Confederation of Indian Industry.
Sumendra Chakraborty
VP- HR & Admin, Renault India
Soumendra is a seasoned HR profesional with over 23 years experience in Talent Management, Talent Acquisition , Competency Mapping vide Lominger Cards, Performance Management and Balanced Score Card has worked in ME, sub Saharan Africa and Turkey. A proactive Business HR partner with experience in strategic HR roles across Manufacturing, Engineering, Banking, Pharmaceuticals, Automobile, IT and ITES organizations. Extensive experience within organizations which are internationally matrix and a deep understanding of the behaviors, values and processes which make a matrix both dynamic and effective. Experienced in designing and facilitating OE interventions. Facilitate senior Strategy and Leadership workshops. Focused on HR Governance and HR Analytics.
Vijayakumar Rangaraju
Vice President – Human Resources, Polaris Financial Technology
Vijayakumar Rangaraju, Vice President – Human Resources, heads the People and Culture function in Polaris Financial Technology and has about 15 years of experience in Manufacturing, Telecom, Information Technology and service sector. Vijay frequently participates in Forums in India and abroad to share and understand perspectives of organizations on trends related to People and Culture. He connects simple and impactful insights to build people centered processes and value based ecosystem. Vijay’s favorite areas of study, deliberation and contribution are inclusive growth, scalability and sustainability in systems and processes. He has been debating on Participative environment in many corporate lobbies and is working towards employee empowerment, which is giving the freedom of choice to employees. A master trainer, a Group Process Facilitator, and a FUN enthusiast, Vijay is aspiring to retire as a politician. Vijay has bachelors’ degree in Law from Madras Law College and has done Post-Graduation in Management from Loyola College, Chennai, India.
Latha Nambisan
Senior Vice President – HR, Servion Global Solutions
Latha Nambisan is the Senior Vice President - HR in Servion Global Solutions, a global leader in Customer Interaction Management. Latha joined Servion Global Solutions in 2010 and brings to the table a unique blend of Consulting expertise and Corporate experience. The first woman to have a place in the Executive Committee of the Company, Latha is actively involved in all aspects of Strategy, Culture and Organisation Development at Servion. With a bachelor’s degree in English Literature and a Masters in Business Administration Latha started her career as a Management Trainee in FACT Ltd., a large fertilizers and petrochemicals manufacturing organisation in the public Sector. When she moved out of FACT, she had gained significant experience in Industrial Relations, managing a factory workforce of over 5000 employees with multiple trade unions. She then worked with Blue Star from September 1997 to May 2000 where she played a twin role of Head of HR for the Packaged AC Division and Regional Head for HR in the South. Aligning HR with Business needs was a key area of contribution. Latha’s last assignment in the Corporate Sector before moving into Consulting was with the RPG Group from 2000 to 2004 where as General Manager HR she led the HR function for the Retail Businesses of the Group, namely Foodworld, Musicworld, Health & Glow, Spencer Travels and Giant hypermarket customizing HR to the needs of each individual business while ensuring a common platform.
Sabita J
Associate Vice President - HR, Steria
Sabita is working as the Associate Vice President - Human Resources for Steria Limited. She is responsible for the Human Resources Portfolio at the Chennai Centre and in her current capacity, as Centre HR Business Partner, she plays a strategic advisory role apart from her responsibility for HR Operations.. Sabita’s endeavor at Steria, is to position HR as a trusted advisor in strategy formulation and a strong partner in execution . Sabita was recently recognized by the Employer Branding Institute, India and conferred the “Woman Super Achiever Award” for individual contribution in the field of Human Resources. She is also the proud recipient of the Special Recognition Award from NASSCOM, for her contribution to the HR Fraternity in the IT/ ITES space. She is the Chair Person of the Nasscom HR Forum, Chennai Chapter and in this capacity has been responsible for launching various leadership sessions through the HR Forum.
Aashish Singh
Vice President and Head HR, Sutherland Global Services
Aashish joined the Sutherland family couple of months back and he is designated Vice President and Head HR – India. In his current association with Sutherland he is responsible for the entire gamut of HR Operations in India. A seasoned professional with diversified and rich experience of 19 years in the HR function, Aashish joined Sutherland from Convergys India, after serving the company as Director India HR. During his successful tenure with Convergys, he handled the complete spectrum of HR operations, systems and programs across India for approximately 12,000 plus employees. A strategic planner, he joined hands with senior business leaders across the globe to create HR policies and procedures, to create group benefit databases and developed orientation, training and sales incentive programs, among other strategic innovations. He successfully participated and played a key role in several International rebadging M&A activities apart from initiating the Six Sigma black belt attrition project . Aashish began his career with HCL-HP as an Engineer Trainee in 1993 and went on to join the Indian Army as an Officer in the Technical wing. In the year 2000 he took over as Director HR at Bizmax Itech Pvt. Ltd, New Delhi, India and served the company for five long years. In 2005 he moved on to DATA Inc. as its Country Head- HR before his previous assignment with Convergys.
Prabhakaran Nambiar
Head – HR & Manufacturing Excellence, ARS Metals
A Human Resource Professional with more than 15 years of Experience in Public and Private sector Organisation. Prabhakaran is currently Heading as Group Head - HR and Manufacturing Excellence for ARS Metals Ltd. This is a 400 Crore Company into Power and Steel Manufacturing TMT Bars and Captive Power Generation. He was previously associated with JBM Group’s Southern Business Group (BG) as Head Learning, Development &Manufacturing Excellence. Being a HR Professional, He is an Experienced Pro in Lean Tools implementation in Automotive Industries. He was also Heading HR in couple of Mfg Industries which were in to Heavy Engineering and Leather Products. He also carry forward a rich experience of more than 10 years from Indian Air Force where He was in to Flight Operations / Human Resources. He is Masters in Human Resource Management and also in Journalism & Mass Communication. His specialised areas are Policy, Process and system formulation & implementation and Employing Innovative HR Practices.
Shankar Narasimhan
EVP- HR, AGS Health
Shankar is EVP of Human Resources at AGS Health. He comes with over 25 years of experience in senior leadership roles across consulting, logistics and BPO organizations and across different geographies, including the Middle East and India. Prior to AGS Health, he has worked for KPMG, TNT and Ajuba Solutions. He has brought to bear his strategic and tactical capabilities to help build highly scalable organizations that have also been recognized and awarded for their excellence in people practices. His work across the gamut of people practices has helped make HR a strategic enabler and a true business partner.
Shashir Shetty
Regional Head - South, Pearson TalentLens
Shashir Shetty heads the South India division of Pearson TalentLens and leads strategic delivery of Talentlens’s consultative and sales goals for this region. Mr Shetty is an authorized trainer for TalentLens’s Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal (W-GCTA), a measure of critical thinking skills, is trained on Golden Personality Type Profiler – for leadership development and also trained on the SOSIE personality test, a TalentLens - owned internationally acclaimed test of personal values and workplace motivators that is being introduced in India for the first time.
Jacob Jacob
Chief People Officer, Apollo Hospitals Enterprises
Jacob has over 16 years of experience and his experience is varied across HR Consulting, International HR & Start Up HR. Jacob’s core strengths lie in the areas of Change Management, Performance Management, Competency mapping & its applications, HR strategy & Organisational Design. Jacob has worked with Organisations such as Feedback Ventures, Emirates Airline in Dubai & Oberoi Realty. At Feedback Jacob has worked on multiple HR assignments across the domain of HR with clients ranging from MNCs (Across Industries), Indian Corporates, NGOs & Governmental Organisations. Some of the key assignments include HR Strategy & Design for a pharmaceutical organization, Organisation culture assessment & design of effective HR systems, Development & implementation of a Performance Management System, 360 Degree feedback design & implementation, etc. At Emirates Jacob was responsible for HR for Airport operations and has had significant exposure to international HR practices on corporate HR strategy and change management. He was part of the team that looked after the HR Change management initiative of moving to a new terminal and all associated HR processes on due diligence. At Oberoi’s Jacob was responsible for the entire gamut of HR initiatives and has worked towards changing the outlook on HR processes and initiatives in the real estate sector. He has avidly worked on areas in talent management & employee engagement. Jacob has also spoken at various conferences and has presented papers on topics such as connecting people & performance. He is an alumnus of T A Pai Management Institute, Manipal having done his PGDM with a specialization in HR. At Apollo, Jacob is striving to create a mechanism of robust service delivery in Healthcare through innovative and robust HR initiatives.
Sunitha Lal
Global Head – HR, Matrimony.com
With a rich career spanning over 20 years in the Human Resources, Sunitha currently heads the Global HR function for Matrimony.com Pvt. Ltd. (erstwhile Consim Info Pvt. Ltd.). Sunitha brings with her, years of expertise in Human Resource Management, Organizational Development, Talent Management, Training and Development, CSR Project Management & Talent Acquisition. She has been responsible for the entire gamut of HR activities for her current and previous organizations, and has spearheaded many new ideas and fresh initiatives, particularly in the areas of Talent Management & Learning.
Chandrasekhar Chenniappan
Head HR, Atmel
Chandrasekhar Chenniappan (Chandru) is the Head of Human Resources for the Research and Development Center of Atmel Corporation in India. He is responsible for the People Strategy which includes Leadership Development and complete gamut of HR activities for Atmel’s R&D Center in India. Chandru has over 18 plus Years of experience in the field of Human Resource Management and has played variety of roles spanning Business Partnering, Employee Relations, Recruitment and General Management. Prior to joining Atmel Corporation, Chandru was with Hewlett-Packard, IGATE Global Solutions, Polaris Software and Kumaran Systems. Chandru actively participates as a speaker in HR Forums, Summits and Engineering Academic Institutions. He is known as a passionate HR Leader for his ‘Values & Connectedness’ with a firm belief in Pragmatic approach to problem solving. He holds a Masters Degree in Life Sciences from Madras University and Post Graduate Diploma in Personnel management and Industrial Relations from the Madras School of Social Work.