Anupam leads HR for Cisco in India & SAARC and works with senior leaders and their leadership teams to build integrated Talent and People Strategies with specific focus on Strategic Workforce Planning, Leadership Development & Coaching, Talent Management in addition to providing human resources expertise in the areas of employee relations, coaching/development, conflict management, organizational development and more. 

In her 8 years with Cisco, Anupam has worked across different roles – such as HR Leader for the Engineering (India) Organization, Customer Experience (Asia Pacific, Japan and Greater China) Organization.

She has previously worked with JP Morgan, Delphi Technical Centre & Tata AutoComp across various functions in HR. Anupam describes herself as a Mother, Traveler, Reader who is slowly getting back to her first love – writing.

Aruna is a performance director, corporate facilitator and founder of Visual Respiration, a performance company committed to designing unique audience experiences. She holds an (MA) in Advanced Theatre Practice from The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, London, United Kingdom. She has a Masters in Marketing & Communications with a focus on brand Management and Public Relations. She is also a graduate in Communication and Design, specialising in design, photography and film. Aruna is interested in engaging with audiences in unique ways and creating multi-sensorial performance experiences.

Aruna has been in theatre and performance for the last 15 years. Her work has been part of festivals in India, Singapore and London. Her most recent work, ‘Coloured & Choosing’ was an immersive experience of Gender through touch, which was part of the Gender Bender Festival in Bangalore. Her work ‘Memory Recipe’ which premiered at the Serendipity Arts festival in Goa explores the confluence of food and performance. Her experimance ‘Knock Knock! Who’s there?’ engages audiences through participatory self discovery and expression. Aruna is an ATSA (Arts Think South Asia) fellow, focusing on contemporary arts management practices. She is presently the Artistic Director of Visual Respiration.

Aruna has worked with Daimler and Ashok Leyland for 6 years as part of their Marketing Communications team, working and supporting the brand development and the launch of a new brand of truck in the Indian Market, BharatBenz. Her work focused on design thinking, communication delivery and audience experience management.

Combining her theatre and corporate experience, Aruna facilitates theatre based learning in areas of Gender, communication, creativity and storytelling for business. She has worked in a variety of industries and organisations in aspects of theatre based learning since 2012. She now actively works with Interweave Consulting to develop unique engagement programmes in the Gender and Diversity space.

N Balachandar, fondly called Bala, is currently Group Director- HR for the fast growing and expanding Coffee Day Group, which has interest in Coffee, Technology, Financial Services, Commercial Real Estates, Logistics, Pharma and Furniture. He is responsible for people strategy and execution for the Group.

Bala has rich multi sector experience. His early grooming was at Asian Paints for leading HR for the retail & industrial sales, and when he left them it was as their Corporate Training Manager.

Then, until 2001 he worked at Standard Chartered Bank, where he started as the first HR Head of fast growing Credit Card business and then HR for Consumer Banking in India, where he was responsible for integrating the Card business with Retail Banking.

He then joined GE in 2001 as Vice President HR for GE Healthcare India where he led HR for multiple verticals of the Healthcare business in India. His role was expanded to include Asia Growth Markets covering India, ANZ, Korea and South East Asia. Bala then worked at the International HQ of GE Healthcare as Organisation & Staffing Leader for EMEA & Asia, and was based in Paris. After four years with GE Healthcare, he was rotated to GE Capital to support integration of Banking platforms across Asia, as Executive Vice President, and was based in Tokyo for three years.

Bala, then decided to return to India for personal reasons and developed a passion to work with agile entrepreneurial companies. In early 2009 he was appointed as Chief HR officer at Strides Arcolab, a fast growing Pharma company with global operations.

He has been teaching at IIM Bangalore and other Universities specifically focusing on Building new age professional firms.

Bala completed his MS in Industrial Management at IIT Chennai in 1988, and has a Master’s with major in PM&IR from Loyola College Chennai (1986).

Chaitanya N Sreenivas (Chinni) has over 23 years of work experience having started his career in Corporate Consulting and Corporate Finance with Arthur Anderson in New York.  As the CHRO for IBM India South Asia today, he is responsible for all aspects of HR including the people strategy, leadership, skills, career, engagement, employee services, labour cost, diversity & inclusion of the workforce across India / South Asia. The HR function at IBM has digitally transformed incorporating AI and Automation across all offerings, Chinni has championed the transformation & the adoption of these methodologies – at scale, driving company-wide, co-created solutions.

Gopal Chhetri has over 26 years of experience in IT services industry and has been with CGI for over 16 years. He is Senior Vice President and the BU Leader of APAC MIG BU. As a BU leader, he is responsible for ensuring successful delivery of all offshore services for multiple large industry sectors including Manufacturing, Retail, Consumer Services, Government and Healthcare/Life Sciences. He has extensive people and client management expertise with a successful career record in challenging and diverse international environments. This includes major account management, project/program, and delivering multi-million dollar contracts profitably. Gopal has worked in multiple industry sectors such as financial services, oil and gas, manufacturing, retail, government and utilities. He has worked extensively in all regions of Asia, UK, Central Europe, Africa and the US. He has successfully developed and grown high performance team with low attrition. He has been recognised with multiple awards including the highest leadership award in CGI, The CGI Builder Award.

Hari is a researcher in AI/ML with a strong background in software engineering and management. He has 25 publications in various forums including IEEE, Springer and he had spoken in various conferences. He is currently working as a Director of engineering at Citrix. Hari is a strong believer on how technology can touch lives and is passionate about bringing changes to the problems in society by applying the right blend of technology, human touch and sustainability. He is actively contributing to the academia, industry initiatives on technology by working, collaborating and mentoring students and professionals. He had mentored a Smart India Hackathon project that won funding for the project and was awarded to implement a solution for the department of defence.

Jasmin is Director – Operations Planning and Governance (COO) of BNY Mellon International Operations (India). She is responsible for the Legal Entity oversight and governances and is accountable for all entity operations. She is a member of BNY Mellon India’s Executive Committee.

A Senior Business Leader with over 22 plus years of diverse experience in global Stakeholder Engagement, Innovation, Strategy and Planning, Media planning, Digital Marketing and Transition for large Banking and Financial services organizations.

She has led operations, risk compliance and regulatory functions at a global level at her previous organizations and has played dynamic roles across her career.

Pashupathi K S (Pashu), is a member of Fidelity Enterprise Risk & Compliance Leadership team.  In this role, Pashu has the responsibility for deploying Risk & Compliance framework at Global locations of Fidelity, which are India, Ireland and China.  Pashu is also a Full Time Director in FMR India Board.  
 
Pashu joined Fidelity Investments in June 2007 and over the last 13 years with the firm, he has held leadership positions in Operations, Operations Excellence and Innovation. 
 
Mechanical Engineer by Qualification, Pashu has an overall 30 years of experience in Financial Services and Manufacturing Industry.
 
In addition to being active in Sports, Pashu loves to explore the world to understand diverse cultures.

Kappu Jaykumar joins our eCommerce team in Bangalore as senior director – IT. Kappu calls herself a passionate technologist who loves to learn and innovate constantly. Kappu has worked with retail giants like Walmart and Tesco, enhancing customer experience and building world-class omnichannel solutions. In the past, she has also worked for companies like Amazon and Microsoft.

Krishna Raghavan is the Chief People Officer at Flipkart. He and his team are responsible for designing and driving initiatives to attract and retain world-class talent, build competencies for the workforce while also strengthening Flipkart’s culture.

Prior to his current role, Krishna has been the Technology Head for Flipkart’s Fulfilment and Services, and Customer Experience Groups. In the course of his tenure at Flipkart, he has also spearheaded the launch of the marketplace platform and has led multiple strategic technology initiatives for Ekart. Aside from his strong technical expertise, he is also known to be a people’s leader. A leader who brings with him the right blend of technical and people skills, he has built an exemplary engineering teams from scratch with his intuitive people management and sound organizational planning. 

With a career spanning over two decades, Krishna is adept at managing cross-functional teams. He has worked across diverse geographies and work cultures and is known to be an active champion of driving a people-first culture in organizations.

Catalyst’s vision and mission have been a passion for Lorraine Hariton since college. Lorraine’s career has benefited tremendously from Catalyst’s work, and she is honoured to lead the organization at this crucial time, to pay it forward to future generations, and to help write the next chapter in its 58-year legacy of accelerating positive change for women.
Lorraine brings a strong and diverse background in technology, innovation, and partnering to her role as President & CEO. Her extensive career includes senior-level positions in Silicon Valley, as well as leadership roles across the private, non-profit, and government sectors. She served as CEO of two Silicon Valley start-ups and held senior executive roles at IBM and other public companies. In 2009, she was appointed by President Obama to be Special Representative for Commercial and Business Affairs at the US Department of State. Most recently, Lorraine was Senior Vice President for Global Partnerships at the New York Academy of Sciences.
Lorraine has been involved in women’s advancement leadership initiatives throughout her career. At the New York Academy of Sciences, she was instrumental in creating the Global STEM Alliance and its 1000 Girls, 1000 Futures program, a global mentoring initiative to help girls pursue careers in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math).
At the US Department of State, Lorraine established the Global Entrepreneurship Program, the WECREATE program for women entrepreneurs, and the Secretary’s Council on Women’s Leadership. She has served on several boards of organizations committed to the advancement of women in the workplace, including the UN Women Global Innovation Coalition for Change, the Stanford Clayman Institute for Gender Research, and Watermark.
Lorraine is the proud mother of Glen and Laura and enjoys spending time with her grandchildren, Moses and Alma, as often as possible. She is an accomplished triathlete who enjoys cycling, tennis, and all things outdoors. Lorraine holds a BS in Mathematical Sciences from Stanford University and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Education:
Nirmala Niketan Master’s in Social Work (MSW), Nirmala NIketan, Mumbai. 1984 – 1986
Counselling Certificate Course (1-year Program) at Parivarthan, Bangalore. 1999 – 2000
Trained in Psychotherapy by Dr. Charles Day. Attended short courses in Gestalt, NLP &TA.

Work Experience:
January 2015 – January 2019
Director Operations, Chestnut Global Partners India Pvt Ltd (US based global employee health & wellness company)
Set up the entire ‘Employee Assistance Program”, for CGP India operations.

• This included orientations to employees, training employees on various program modules to create awareness and promote mental health, to create an environment of mental, social and emotional wellness in organisations.
• This involved travelling across rural and urban India to interact with factory workers and management members at all levels.

Consulted with management and team leaders to promote and use EAP effectively.
Conducted several orientation programs to both employees and ICC teams with regards to “ Sexual Harrassment for Women at the Workplace”.

Served as External Committee member and assisted with cases of Sexual Harrassment that came up for review.
Spearheaded the first ever study in India along with SHRM, on the Impact & Outcomes

Has been part of the Firepro leadership team that built the business in the Indian and overseas markets since 2004. Executed the business development and customer acquisition plan in the initial stage to build the company presence to a pan India level. The high growth phase of the organization saw exposure to challenges across building people resources, building partner alliances for products and evangelizing organization culture. Led fund raising activities at different stages of organizational growth and managed investor relationships through the full cycle of due diligence, investment, management and exit for the investors. Experience in reporting to a large board and managing investor expectations in a high growth environment and also periods of market recession.

Overall: Madhumitha Venkataraman is a Diversity & Inclusion Evangelist with extensive experience in working with multiple diversity groups including gender, disability, LGBTIQA and generational diversity. She is one of the core members of Diversity Dialogues, a collective which has established credibility in bringing to the forefront and encouraging dialogue on, newer spectrums of diversity and inclusion – mental health, LGBTQIA+, different hues of parenting.

An HR professional with around 10+ years of experience, she has lead diversity and inclusion for Hindustan Coca Cola Beverages and Snapdeal. Overall, she has worked in multiple areas of human resources including business partnering, leadership development, talent management, employee engagement in addition to diversity and inclusion. Her dream and vision is to see a more inclusive and compassionate world.

Work on Diversity and Inclusion: Madhumitha played a pivotal role in building focus on disability as a part of the GE India diversity and inclusion charter, and was instrumental in conceptualizing and leading the diversity and inclusion charter at Snapdeal called Advitya (focused on all areas of diversity including gender, disability, LGBTIQ, generational diversity and beyond).

Advitya was recognized as one of the best diversity and inclusion initiatives by People Matters, and was also awarded as one amongst the top 5 initiatives on diversity and inclusion by Biz Divas Foundation in the year 2015.

In Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages, she was instrumental in setting up the diversity and inclusion roadmap for short term and long term. As a result of her leadership and influence, the organization set up its first greenfield plant with 40% women representation in Sanand. She also mobilized inclusive policies and benefits for diverse employee segments, set up the diversity and inclusion council and employee resource groups, built awareness on prevention of sexual harassment and unconscious bias, influenced focus on engagement, development and retention of diverse segments. In addition, Madhumitha also led the diversity and inclusion circle globally for the bottling group of Coca-Cola.

She has been an advisor, consultant and volunteer with multiple NGOs, corporates and social enterprises in the space of diversity and inclusion. Her specific focus is in areas of employment and empowerment for woman returnees, persons with disability, transgender persons and building second careers for senior citizens. She was one of the key members, instrumental in conceptualization and execution of India’s first accessible PRIDE march in November 2016.

Publications/Writing assignments: Published a guide on building of an LGBTIQA inclusive workspace in partnership with NASSCOM. She partnered with CII and Interweave on a research publication focused on best practices in gender diversity in the manufacturing and FMCG sector in 2016.

Madhumitha is one of the lead members of “diversity diaries”, a blog to capture the voice and perspective of different diversity groups. She has also been a columnist with Know Your Star and writes ‘very short stories’ with focus on human relationships and compassion.

Education: Madhumitha is an MBA in HR from Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies and a graduate degree in finance from Narsee Monjee College.She is a certified assessor of the FIRO-B instrument. She has completed a certification in the area of sexuality and disability by CREA and Enfold. She is certified in American Sign Language from Chandrashekhar Institute of Speech and Hearing Impairment. Madhumitha was recently certified in life skills training fromParivartan Centre for Counselling and Training services in Bangalore and completed her transaction analysis 1 on 1. Currently, she is pursuing her passion in the space of mental health by training to be a counsellor with Parivarthan Counselling and Training, Bangalore.

Recognitions: Madhumitha was recognized as a young woman achiever across all walks of life by Wonders of Women, Bangalore in 2015. She was identified amongst top 17 diversity professionals across South Asia by Biz Divas Foundation in 2017.She has been recognized by the World HRD congress for her work in diversity and inclusion two years in a row – in 2017 and 2018. In 2019, she was recognized by Women Economic Forum for being an extraordinary women achiever.

A regular speaker at multiple conferences and corporates, Madhumitha has been featured in several media such as The Hindu, The New Indian Express, Times of India, Eenadu, Your Story, The News Minute, Woman at Work and others for her work on diversity and inclusion and her personal journey.

Mahesh Natarajan is a counsellor and works with adults , couples and families from diverse backgrounds to support personal growth including understanding of self, career goals and progress, overcoming fears/ anxieties, creating nurturing relationships, sexuality and intimacy.

He was in IT & Consulting for 14 years after his degrees from BITS, Pilani and FMS, Delhi, before shifting careers with an MS in Counselling & Psychotherapy and specific counselling skills training.

In addition to his counselling focus, Mahesh is also a writer and has an ongoing column called “Love-o-logy” in the New Indian Express, in addition to other featured articles and books of short stories (“Pink Sheep,” 2010).

Mahesh has been helping companies improve inclusion of diversity (Specifically genders and sexualities) through process/ policy reviews, helping increase awareness through workshops, panel discussions and other exercises, create safer spaces and allyship, and develop Employee Resource Groups.

Matthew is Deputy to the Head of Wholesale Banking (GBIS) Technology & Operations in India and Romania. The function has over 4,500 staff members.

He has more than 15 years of experience in the financial sector, primarily in the Societe Generale Group with a focus on Banking Operations and Risk Management. Matthew has been associated with Societe Generale Global Solution Centre, India for the last 5 years where he has been responsible for various leadership roles in Wholesale Banking Operations and Technology.

He holds a bachelors degree in Politics from the University of Sussex, United Kingdom and an MBA from Universidad Adolfo Ibaňez, Chile.

Nirmala Menon, Founder and CEO of Interweave Consulting, is a HR professional with global experience of over 30 years across multiple industries. Educated in India and the US, combined with her exposure to international work experience has made D&I a personal area of interest. Her last corporate job was with IBM as the Employee Relations and Diversity leader for India where she gained wide and varied experience in the area of Diversity and Inclusion management, including opportunities to work on and facilitate interventions in several locations – Asia Pacific region, Ireland, Canada, Mexico and the United States.

Nirmala is listed as a Subject Matter Expert by SHRM India and is an active member of Nasscom’s D&I Steering Committee. She was also a representative in the informal international advisory group of the UN Global Compact & the UNIFEM to finalise the Women’s Empowerment Principles.

An alumnus of XLRI India, Nirmala holds an additional masters in HR from Temple University, Philadelphia, USA. Nirmala is also a certified coach from the International Coaching Academy

A storehouse of energy, Nirmala is full of ideas and a stickler for quality. Her endless zest and passion for her work sets the culture for Interweavers!

Priya has 23 years of experience in leadership roles with in-depth knowledge in building and delivering tech-led strategies across BFSI domain. Her expertise lies in managing large IT projects and building business and organization strategy. Having worked across various investment banking firms like Lehman Brothers, Nomura and Societe Generale. Priya brings with her a unique experience of growing the offshore business through the digital lever. 
As a Chief Operating Officer & Deputy CEO (Interim) at AXA,  Priya is responsible for overseeing delivery across IT, Robotics Automation, operational excellence,  Project management, Facilities and Innovation. She is uniquely qualified to drive strategic prioritization and transformation, with a laser-focus on innovation through emerging trends and RPA.
Priya has a Master’s degree in Computer Applications from Osmania University, Hyderabad and Executive Education certifications from Harvard Business School and Indian School of Business. She was also selected to be part of the W50 program at UCLA, Los Angeles, where she was trained to be a Board member. She was a board member for the India entity at Societe Generale and a permanent member of the board at AXA business Services.
Apart from this, Priya is also a certified coach & Co-sponsor of the Diversity and Inclusion stream at AXA Business Services. 
Priya is married with 2 children and a hands-on mom. She also  takes keen interest to participate in CSR activities at the organizations she is part of and also spends personal time at the school that is adopted by the NGO she supports 

Priya Gopalakrishnan is the CHRO at Arvind Fashions Limited. She is a Commerce graduate from Mumbai University and completed her Post Graduation in Management from the Indian Institute of Management. Ahmedabad in 1994. Priya brings with her a deep understanding of business context and HR’s role in enabling & supporting the business. She worked with Hindustan Unilever during the Initial part of her career for more than 12 years, starting as a Management Trainee and then working her way through various roles in the HR function. Prior to joining AFL. Priya was heading the HR function for more than a decade at Exide Life Insurance (formerly known as ING Vysya Life insurance). She has served as a member of the Executive Committee of NIHRD, Bangalore Chapter and their Advisory Council. She loves reading & is a fitness enthusiast.

Priya Mohan has been an entrepreneur for the last six years. In 2012, she co-founded Vidyartha, an educational technology platform for students in grades 6-12, which she exited successfully to Byju’s – an Indian edtech unicorn. Prior to her operating role at Vidyartha, Priya spent 9 years working as a sell-side investment banker and equity research analyst, where she helped high-growth companies raise private equity, structure and execute complex transactions. These included private investments, secondary sales, and buyouts. Priya is a Chartered Accountant and has a Masters of Business Administration from the Indian School of Business (ISB). She was also invited as a state guest of the United States for the coveted IVLP program (International Visitors Leadership Program) along with edupreneurs and educators from 18 countries.

Sajid Ahmed leads Wells Fargo Technology across India and the Philippines. In his role, he is responsible for the engineering, development, and operations of all technology based out of the two regions. Before joining Wells Fargo, Sajid worked as a Managing Director for Goldman Sachs based out of their India office. In this capacity, he was responsible for Platform Engineering for Asia Pacific (including India) and was the Global Co-Head of Enterprise Technology and Co-Head of India Technology. He also served on the Technology Division Executive Committee, Technology Division Risk Committee, Bangalore Executive Committee, and Board of Directors for GSSPL, India. Sajid holds a master’s degree in Software Systems from BITS Pilani, and a bachelor’s degree in Electronics and Communication from Karnataka University.

Shachi Irde is an Inclusion Strategist & Leadership Facilitator with over two decades of corporate experience. Shachi works with organisations to develop strategic diversity plans with business goals, and structure measure of success which is evidence based and incremental. A highly respected speaker on topics including diversity, equity, belonging and inclusive cultures, how it impacts the diversity of talent and related business issues. She was felicitated with “Iconic Women in Leadership” Award by Women Economic Forum. Global Diversity and Inclusion Leadership award by World HRD Congress amongst others. Shachi has been featured as one of the “Woman of Wonder” by Vodafone Foundation an initiative aimed at celebrating the lives of ordinary women who have achieved extraordinary feats. She also mentors’ women and sits on Boards of organisations.

Ms. Shobha Ratna is Executive Vice President and Head – Human Resource & Training at Aditya Birla Sun Life Insurance (ABSLI) and Head – Diversity and Inclusion, Aditya Birla Capital.
 
Shobha has extensive experience of about eighteen years in the functional areas of talent, leadership and learning. Prior to this role at ABSLI, she managed talent and leadership development at the Aditya Birla Group (ABG) for six years. At ABG, Shobha contributed significantly to institutionalizing the leadership development and talent management processes across the Group through a series of new initiatives aimed to build the talent pipeline. Her professional experience also includes a stint of twelve years at Hindustan Unilever Ltd. (HUL) with a year spent in Unilever London.
 
Shobha holds a Bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering from the National Institute of Technology (NIT), Calicut and a Master’s degree in Personnel Management & Industrial Relations (PMIR) from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS).

Shruthi Bopaiah has 15 years of experience across Communication, Branding and HR. She is currently the Head of Client Engagement and Communications at Bridgeweave Ltd an AI Fintech company headquartered in London.Prior to this , she was the Global head of Internal Communications at Infosys Ltd.  She has a PG degree in HR from Symbiosis Institute of Management Studies, Pune. She was among a niche set of leaders selected for an Executive Leadership Program at Stanford Graduate School of Business and is also certified in Design Thinking from Stanford D. School. 

She is SHRM’s Top 40 HR Influencers (2019) in the country today.  Shruthi is the only Indian who has been recognized as a ‘ Global Game Changer’ in 2012 by Workforce Management in the US. Under her leadership, Infosys won the IABC Gold Quill Awards (2013 and 2018) for Excellence in Leadership Comms and Change Management.  

She is a regular speaker at various conferences, and is part of the visiting faculty at B-Schools and Communication Institutes.

As Vice President, Global Growth Markets, Vandana leads Catalyst’s Asia-Pacific region and is responsible for the strategy to drive the amplification of Catalyst’s global impact. A trusted advisor, she coaches and counsels Fortune 500 companies across industries and around the globe with respect to their strategies to advance women into leadership and create inclusive workplaces where all individuals can thrive. As part of Catalyst’s Speakers Bureau, Vandana is a frequent speaker on a number of inclusion-related topics (taking charge of your career, unconscious bias to inclusive leadership, mentoring/sponsorship, engaging men as champions of inclusion, working across generations, women on boards, employee resource groups, work-life integration/flexible work arrangements and more). She has spoken around the globe in locations including Canada, the US, Australia, Chile, Switzerland, and India.
Prior to joining Catalyst, Vandana practiced immigration law, working with global clients across a broad range of industries such as professional services, information technology, manufacturing, financial services, consumer goods and more. She went on to work in the Global Diversity and Inclusion groups of two Canadian banks, where she focused on gender initiatives and advising Employee Resource Groups. In pursuing her passion for empowering women, she has also worked as a Research Associate for the Pay Equity Task Force in Ottawa (Status of Women Canada), and travelled to Vietnam with an NGO in partnership with the University of Toronto to evaluate and report back on a micro-finance project designed to help women living in poverty to understand and enter the mainstream banking system.

Vandana has earned a B.Comm. from McMaster University, an MBA from the University of Windsor, and an LL.B. from the University of Ottawa.

You can follow Vandana under the Twitter handle @ms_juneja.

Vani has 25+ years of rich experience in diverse disciplines including Talent Acquisition, Staffing and other operational HR activities in Technology/Consulting Organizations with global presence, and has contributed to Policy & Procedure building exercises relating to People Acquisition and Retention

As the SBU business partner, she is a keen planner, strategist and implementer with rich experience in devising & implementing strategies aimed achieving organizational objectives and enhancing operational efficiency

Professor Vasanthi Srinivasan did her Post Graduate Diploma in Personnel Management and Industrial Relations from XLRI Jamshedpur, and a Fellow in Management (Ph. D equivalent) from the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore. Prior to joining IIMB, Professor Vasanthi Srinivasan has worked at Wipro Limited and a boutique consulting firm. She was the ICCR Chair Professor of Corporate Responsibility and Governance at the HHL School of Management, Leipzig, Germany in 2012-2013. She was a British Council Visiting Scholar at the International Centre for Corporate Social Responsibility at the Nottingham University Business School in 2007.

Her research projects include “Generational Cohorts in workplace” with Society for Human Resource Management; “Midcareer Men and Women in technology: Barriers to Advancement” with AnitaB.org; “Future Ready Leadership Competencies” with Nasscom; “Rethinking Business Responsibility in India” with CUTS International and “Building the women directorship pipeline in India” with support from National Stock Exchange. She has also authored several papers in national and international journals. She runs a website www.teachcsr.com, which is intended to enable faculty in business schools to mainstream teaching corporate responsibility.

Vasanthi is currently on the Advisory board of the National Human Resource Development Network, Bangalore Chapter; a member of the India Leadership Team of Globethics.net and is also on the Board of Directors of Enable India, and Fourth Wave Foundation. She was a member of the Uday Kotak Committee on Corporate Governance set up by Securities Exchange Board of India in 2017. She is an Executive Committee Member of the International Society of Business, Economics & Ethics (ISBEE).

Her research interests are Women on Boards, Business and Human Rights and HRM in rapidly growth contexts. She is a Distinguished Alumnae of XLRI Jamshedpur. Her MOOCS course on “People Management” on the Edx platform was recognized among the top 20 courses for soft skills in 2018 by Business Insider.

Veena Gopalakrishnan is an employment law partner at AZB & Partners and is based out of Bangalore. She focuses on providing strategic and practical counsel to employers across industries on a wide range of issues pertaining to Indian employment law, keeping in mind rapidly evolving workplace dynamics.  A significant portion of the practice is focused on assisting employers mitigate risks of litigation and ensuring compliance with Indian law. She regularly advices clients on complex employment law issues pertaining to workforce structuring, senior managerial exits, reductions in force, closures, employee transfers, integrations pursuant to corporate transactions and cross-border employee benefits. 
 
Being a strong advocate of inclusion, she has also been actively involved in advisory pertaining to workplace harassment, legal aspects of diversity and inclusiveness, including drafting and reviewing employment policies and educating employers on their duties and obligations in this respect.  She has assisted several clients on responding to and redressing issues pertaining to workplace sexual harassment, particularly pursuant to the #metoo movement in India.
 
Veena has been chosen as the exclusive winner of the Client Choice Award, 2019, presented by International Law Office in partnership with Lexology, for the Employment and Benefits category for India.  Veena was conferred the Women Super Achiever Award in February 2017 by the World HRD Congress, a forum for human resource professionals.

A sailor at heart and by education, Vivek is passionate about enabling organizations drive the right balance between business outcomes, process and people practices.

He founded Above N Beyond with a singular focus on ‘execution’. Over the years, he has stayed true to his core of keeping solutions simple and actionable. Vivek’s strength is the ability of to weave together the needs of multiple stakeholders and to guide strategic conversations towards a common end.

With a career spanning over 22 years, Vivek spent the last decade scaling a globally distributed high growth technology firm in his role as the chief executive leading operations, people and information security. Vivek is often sought by CXOs leading firms poised for the next growth spurt as a sound board and operationalization coach.

Prior to founding Above N Beyond, Vivek worked with emids Technologies, CGI, SRIT and BergesonWorldWide Shipping.