HR Movements: 28 Aug, 2017

1.

Rajul Garg, first independent director of PeopleStrong

Garg, who has been the board member of several companies in the past, has mentored many startups. 

Rajul Garg has joined PeopleStrong as its first ever independent director after it received multiple investments recently. 

Garg is a well-known early investor in tech companies. He has been a successful business professional with experience in not just investing in a company but also building it. His first startup was Pine Labs, when he had just finished college. Then he co-founded Global Logic, a global services company, which was sold in 2013 for $400 million. He has also invested in several other startups. 

Speaking on Garg’s appointment, Pankaj Bansal, co-founder and CEO, PeopleStrong, said “We are very excited to have Rajul as a part of PeopleStrong’s growth story. He brings a wealth of experience from the technology product industry, and as we take our HR SaaS product to the global stage, we look forward to his valuable inputs, which the company will gain and benefit from”.

Garg has been the board member of several companies earlier. He is the counselor for several startups and is part of organisations, such as TiE and NASSCOM. He is also a mentor at IIT. 

2.

Robin Leopold named chief HR-JP Morgan Chase

Ganesh Subramanian and Harish Abichandani are the new occupants of top positions in the company.

Ola has appointed Ganesh Subramanian as vice president of its human resource department and Harish Abichandani as its chief financial officer (CFO).
In his 19 years of career, Subramanian has worked with only one company, Unilever.
After passing out of XLRI in 1998, he joined Unilever as management trainee. During this period, he moved to various roles within HR and to various places as well. His last position was director HR, enterprise and technology solutions. Sumbramanian also holds a degree in engineering from Bangalore University.
Prior to joining Ola, Abichandani worked for eKart as the chief financial officer, which is a logistic arm of Flipkart. He has also worked at Tata Teleservices as CFO.

3.

Amex India’s HR head Vishpala Reddy to ride on Uber

Globally, Uber has been under lots of criticism in terms of people management especially on sexual harassments and gender discrimination. Reddy will have a tough task as the new chief people officer for India and South Asia.

Vishpala Reddy, vice-president and head HR, American Express in India will move to Uber as chief people officer for India and South Asia. The appointment is in line with the ridesharing app’s moves to strengthen its leadership bench in India.  

Reddy will join Uber this month and help the company’s efforts to position human capital as a key driver in enabling business success.

Globally, Uber has been under lots of criticism in terms of people management especially on sexual harassments and gender discrimination. Even the CEO, Travis Kalanick had to go in June.

Even in India, Uber drivers have had major controversies for misbehaving with passengers and sexual assaults on women passengers. Questions have been raised on Uber’s hiring methodology and verification of its driver.

In such a scenario, it will be task for Reddy to clean up the place and ensure a structured system in place.