Rajesh Padmanabhan is an influential Senior Business Transformation leader, Global HR Professional, Life Coach and Leadership Builder. A 6 X 6 matrix professional, he has done six roles i.e., Business Head, Corporate Strategy, Consulting, Banking, Systems & Digital and Global HR in six varied industries i.e., Banking, Manufacturing, Hospitality & Consumer, IT Services, Consulting & Diversified Conglomerates.

He champions the cause of People Transformation ie, he can help drive radical change that helps an organisation or an individual in a new direction and take it to a new height of effectiveness. With a successful career spanning over decades, Rajesh is one of the few leaders who is good at weaving cross cultures easily into businesses. He creates impactful business-people solutions in the areas of organisational performance and stakeholder outcome. He holds the distinction of being the first Indian HR leader to globalise Human Resources function across geographies. His career graph however, to say the least, is unconventional. It was quite early on in his career that he realised, the world out there was just too big to restrain him within stated parameters. Equipped with a double Masters in Human Resources and Finance from Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies, decades of exemplary work profile repertoire, he has grown to be one of India’s most powerful and sought-after Business & People Transformation Professionals. He started his career in Systems & ERP, built it further on finance at the turn of financial liberalisation in India, gaining strong foothold in corporate banking and running a P&L in the formative years of his career. After doing roles in Strategy & Corporate Planning, in the late nineties, he grew to realise the fantastic convergence between business and HR. This prompted him to take the big plunge into HR and then there was no looking back. In his long corporate span, each of his ventures has been instrumental in fine-tuning his skills and has taken him across functions and roles. It was his restive and unabashed spirit that drove him to take on more transformative roles in Consulting and Global HR. A creator and a disruptive thinker in the space of leadership and talent, he weaves cultures easily into businesses and creates impactful business-people solutions in the areas of organisational performance and stakeholder outcome. He is digitally savvy and has clear insights and foresights on predictive modelling and future of leadership building. His areas of expertise in people transformation include organisational excellence, leadership building, talent designing, rewards management, building large HR centres of expertise and shared services, learning centres and academies, executive search, HR operations and global mobility. His array of expertise and experience makes him a sought-after speaker at some of the leading business schools and corporate/industry forums. Rajesh is a successful life coach in the areas of happiness, success, relationship and results. He advises leading organisations, start-ups, small and medium enterprises, private equity companies, CEOs, and also offers premium individual solutions to people in all walks of life. As a qualified life coach, he currently advises and coaches individuals, corporate executives, Cricketers, Celebrities & self employed professionals from many other walks of life.

Career

Founder & CEO, Talavvy
May 2020 onwards

Director, Group CHRO, Welspun Group
February 2016 - April 2020

President, Group CHRO, Member Group Executive Committee, Vedanta Resources
June 2014 - October 2015

Corporate Vice President and CHRO, India Management Board, Capgemini India
October 2010 - June 2014

Executive Vice President, CHRO, Global Management Board,
Patni Computer Services (Later I-Gate and now Capgemini)
August 2007 - October 2010

Executive Vice President - Group HR and OCLD, The Oberoi Group November 2004 - August 2007

Director Human Capital (Global), Essel Propack
September 2001 - November 2004

Vice President Human Resources, ICICI Infotech
June 1999 - September 2001

Trainee to Assistant Vice President, ICICI Bank
April 1985 - June 1999