Anand Bhaskar Meduri, CHRO, Adani Airports
Anand Bhaskar is an HR professional with over 30 years of work experience in the area of Human Resource Management & Development.
Podcast
Overview
The past few decades have seen massive evolution in all aspects of the business sector. Technology has changed the face of business and entrepreneurs continue to adapt to newer trends of business every day. A faculty of business that has probably witnessed groundbreaking change is Human Resources.
Who knew we would hire using artificial intelligence one day?
HR is one of the most dynamic departments in corporate business. The role of HR officers/personnel managers has changed greatly over the years.
Today, The Brand Called You brings you a very accomplished entrepreneur and HR professional who has worked for several big companies in his professional career. We are pleased to welcome Anand Bhaskar.
About Anand:
Currently, Anand is the Chief Human Resources Officer of Adani Airports. He has also been the Co-Founder of Planet Ganges. Anand is also the former HR Director of Microsoft India.
Anand has spent enough time in the HR industry to witness all the important milestones the sector has reached. In this very informative discussion with Ashutosh, Anand takes us on a journey of his incredibly successful profession.
Evolution of the HR sector:
Having worked in the HR department of leading companies, Anand has seen it all!
“I think over the years organizations have understood that there are two things that are absolutely critical for the success of a company. One is and both actually end with the word capital. One is the financial capital and the other is human capital.
So somewhere as the stager of the CFO or the finance, people grew in the organization from bookkeepers to you know financial analysts and partners. Similarly, I think HR also has evolved from being personnel or industrial relations folks to HR business partners.”
The CHRO:
One of the major changes HR has seen is the evolution of the role of a personnel manager. Companies now have a CHRO i.e. the Chief Human Resources Officer. A CHRO has diverse and increased responsibilities as compared to a personnel manager.
They have more responsibilities and power in the corporate sector. CHROs are actively using technology to change the hiring game.
Technology in HR :
When asked about the role of technology in HR, Anand replies
“I think technology has been very interesting the way it’s evolved in the HR function. Initially, technology was seen more as a productivity tool. You bring in tech you’re able to you know automate certain processes and make things look better and gradually technology moved into the space of intelligence right.
You look at the psychometric tools that are being used by many HR professionals whether it’s MBTI or Hogan Firobi. All these tools that are being used or available now give you some intelligence in terms of you know what are you looking for in people.”
Anand talks about the pandemic and its effect on HR. Owing to the technology, he also throws light on working with younger generations and their new perspectives.
Anand has transformed himself from a corporate professional to an entrepreneur and he uses his experiences very skillfully!
Tune in to know more about him!
Profile
Anand Bhaskar is an HR professional with over 30 years of work experience in the area of Human Resource Management & Development. He has worked with large & diverse organizations in the area of Learning & Development, Employee Relations, Compensation management & design, Talent management & development, Competency models, Strategic HR, Executive assessment & coaching.
He graduated with Masters in Human Resource Management from Panjab University Business School, Chandigarh, India as a Silver Medalist. He started his career with the 2nd largest petroleum company Bharat Petroleum and established their L&D function for Northern Region, was an extended member on ‘transformation team’ who worked with Arthur D’ Little on the Org transformation project in 1995 which restructured BPCL into 6 Strategic Business Units.
During his 7.5 years with FMCG majors Reckitt Benckiser and Hindustan Unilever Limited, he worked in the space of Employee Relations and as an HR Business Partner. He was Head – HR & Support working as the business partner to Executive Director – Unilever Research, Asia Pacific. He has the unique distinction of being the recipient of the Directors Award in Hindustan Unilever Limited for successfully leading the largest change initiatives in the history of the company. Over the years Anand has worked all over India and has acclimatized himself to different work cultures across India.
Since 2004, Anand has been working in senior management roles and has been working in close partnership with the business. He worked as Vice President – HR to the CEO of GE-SBI JV company. In his role as a Head HR, he provided strategic leadership direction to the HR function and worked closely with the Sr. Management Team (SMT) of GE-SBI. He was recognized with the GE Leadership Excellence Award by the CEO of GE Money – Global for having built and mentored a strong Sr. Management Team in GE-SBI.
Anand was associated with Microsoft till August 2010 as Director HR for the Sales Organization with revenue of $1 billion. He worked closely with the Chairman & Managing Director of MS India to build business & Sales leadership in the team and grow the India business. He was an internal coach to many leaders and is a visiting faculty & coach with Indian School of Business, Hyderabad.
In September 2010 Anand joined Sapient as the Head of HR for India, later grew to manage APAC and subsequently manage most of Sapient’s global HR Operations except EU & US. He played a key role in repositioning Sapient from an IT Services company into the then world’s largest digital marketing company, by transforming leadership mindset and culture. During his tenure with Sapient, Anand completed his PCC (Professional Coach Certification) from ICF and became a certified Coach.
After Sapient sold itself to Publicis in 2015, Anand decided to become an entrepreneur and cofounded Planet Ganges with a vision to redefine the Talent Management & culture space through a digital SAS based product and a consulting practice. Over the next Planet Ganges grew into a successful SAS platform with 50+ clients across India. In 2019 the company made a strategic decision to sell and exit the SAS platform. After exiting the Technology platform, Planet Ganges continued its consulting practice working in culture transformation space with multiple Indian and Global clients. As a Coach, Anand has worked with more than 100 CXOs over the last 8 years and has 4000+ coaching hours to his credit.
In 2020, the Adani Group approached Anand to come onboard to help it build the world’s largest Airports business. Since November 2020, Anand is associated with the Adani Group in the merger, integration and creation of the largest Airports business in India; with an ambition to be the largest in the world. In his current role, Anand is responsible for leading one the largest cultural integration ever seen in this sector, with 7 airports coming together under one single multi-airport operator (Adani Airport Holdings Limited) and construction of 1 green field airport over the next 5 years.
Today, Anand wears multiple hats. He is a Coach, Advisor and Director with Planet Ganges and plays the role of CHRO for Adani Airports.
