Article: Are You In The List 2017 Winner: Madhushree Mehta

Leadership

Are You In The List 2017 Winner: Madhushree Mehta

Madhushree Mehta from Vodafone believes that for leaders to be successful in their roles, it is pertinent to have three key qualities, which are intent, intellect and integrity.
Are You In The List 2017 Winner: Madhushree Mehta

Madhushree Mehta | AGM – OE & Change Management | Vodafone India Limited

While I believe in education being a continuous journey where every day throws a new challenge and is a learning experience and one needs to be a lifelong student; my formal education has been in the area of Telecommunications Engineering from PESIT, Bangalore and PGD-HRM from XLRI, Jamshedpur. A key landmark in my post-graduation has been in my role as the Co-Lead of CII-Yi (Jamshedpur Chapter) where I ran several initiatives in my roles as a counsellor, reader to the visually disabled, driving literacy programs and setting up blood donation camps to leading projects in Women Health and Hygiene in Musabani Tehsil in Jharkhand for which I also received Gold Medal in Social Initiatives during my post-graduation.

Post my MBA, a natural choice of working in a telecom giant like Vodafone excited me. My current role in Organization Design & Change Management where I have been instrumental in leading large-scale projects like Zonal Sales Delayering, Business Units Consolidation, Creation of Centralized Business Intelligence Unit, managing Headcount and Payroll Budget for VIL and my previous stint in Talent Acquisition where I helped the business set up digital, consumer segment and Customer Value Management teams have been deeply fulfilling. My work has been appreciated in the form of various accolades that I have received, having fast-tracked career progression and being selected in Vodafone’s Young Women’s Accelerated Career Development Program BOLTRED.

What differentiates me from others

For leaders to be successful in their roles, it is pertinent to have three key qualities, which are intent, intellect and integrity. Through the various life experiences, I have imbibed the above qualities which I believe, sets me apart from the rest.

Throughout my personal and professional journey, there have been numerous instances where I have displayed ability to drive positive change with a potential to lead and inspire others.  I am described as a person with result orientation, eye for detail, ability to cut through clutter, challenging the status quo, standing up for what I believe in and getting large cross-functional teams to align on solving pertinent business problems. All these mentioned qualities need self-awareness, self-regulation, empathy, constant learning and the ability to flex between different styles of leadership to deliver the desired results. 

What is my Biggest Talent Priority

The word ‘disruptive’ has become commonplace these days; the last 5 years have witnessed the advent of fast evolving breakthrough technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, Augmented Reality, Cloud Computing and  Internet of Things. These are not only impacting the business models which are continuously evolving but also the kind of skills and talent the organizations needs to bring in.

The old saying of “jack of all trade” remains critical and we are witnessing how employee specialists are going to become an endangered species and generalists who can could adapt quickly, think on their feet, and perform duties well will be in demand.

Thus, the biggest talent priority would be to up-skilling specifically in the new technologies and digital. 

The one thing I will: 

Change in HR: In our roles, questioning redundant processes and practices in pertinent. With the advent of technology, we now have an opportunity to automate routine, repetitive work and outsource non-core activities. Digitizing these repetitive works and promoting self-service while ensuring excellence in customer experience will differentiate our processes from others.

Retain in HR: To me retaining ‘H’ in Human resources differentiates a high-performing HR team from the rest.

In our role as HR professionals, we deal with several business leaders and employees to understand their pain areas. Several of these conversations need us to deal with employees in their tough times and it is empathy which transcends leadership, culture and innovation.

This is how I will disrupt HR:

Consumerization is manifesting in all walks of life and we are moving fast from the era of mass production to mass customization.

It is pertinent that HR should move from one-size-fits-all approach and move towards delivering customized experiences; providing best-in-class experience to our employees makes them strive to go an extra mile towards their consumers thereby delivering enhanced profitability and engagement levels. 

Today, large amount of data is available in both structured and unstructured forms and analytics is not only restricted to prediction of attrition trends but is expanding into the areas of talent, capability and workforce analytics. The insights generated from these data points should be used as cornerstone of every decision Identifying important business levers and ensuring real time data is available to all relevant stakeholders can be a key differentiator in taking quick and informed decision as well as promoting democratization of organizations. In my current and future roles, I wish to combine these two powerful tools of consumerization and analytics to help our business take quick, informed and relevant decisions.

Here are the other winners: 

  1. Anurag Shrivastava | Manager – Business HR (Commercial) | Vodafone

  2. Chandni Narang | Manager – Org Design & Effectiveness | Flipkart

  3. Divya Amarnath | Head – HR Services Delivery, India | Hindustan Unilever Ltd

  4. Harshil Sethi | Manager HR – International Business Unit | Asian Paints

  5. Kamiya Choithani | Sr. Manager – HR | Myntra

  6. Natasha Boparai | HR Business Partner – GBS, IT, Global Functions | Boston Scientific Corporation

  7. Pooja Shetty | Senior Chief Manager | Aditya Birla Finance Ltd.

  8. Preetha Santhanam | Senior Manager – HR | Ernst & Young

  9. Saswati Subhasmita | Assistant Manager | Bosch

  10. Sneha Arora | Senior HRBP Consultant | SAP
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Topics: Leadership, #AreyouintheList?

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