The 4th quarter of the financial year 2017-18 witnessed some of the significant HR movements across the industry. Some of the actions in the industry were expected to happen and few of them came as a surprise to the HR industry. In this article, we highlight some of the major movements which took place during January 2018 to March 2018. 

January

•    Yashwant Mahadik - The first week of the New Year came as a surprise, when the Executive Vice President and CHRO of Sun Pharma, Yashwant Mahadik stepped down from his role. The Indian drug major had appointed Mahadik to lead HR initiative for its 30,000 employees in August 2015. His next destination is unknown at the moment. 

•    Sukhjit S Pasricha - In the next move on the fifth of January, Bajaj Finance ropes in Sukhjit S Pasricha as the Chief HR. Before joining Bajaj Finance, he was associated with Interglobe Aviation as VP HR and Admin. This move was the second big development in the first week of the month.  

•    Kaustabh Sonalkar - In another move, global conglomerate, Essar announced Kaustabh Sonalkar as President HR, CEO at Essar Foundation. Before this stint at Essar, he was associated with Future Group as the Group Chief People Officer. He was also the Senior Partner/Executive Director at PwC. 

•    Rajiv Naithani – Infogain has appointed Rajiv Naithani as Head of India HR. Rajiv joins Infogain from Dassault Systemes (3DS), where he headed the HR functions for R&D and Services businesses in India.

•    Animesh Kumar – One of India’s biggest retailers Future Group got ex IDFC bank HR Head as their Chief People and Transformation Officer. Animesh has over 20 years of experience in managing Human Resources in the FMCG, Services and Banking sectors.

February

•    Rajagopalan Raghavan – The first appointment for February came from Indigo. The aviation giant ropes in Amazon’s HR executive Rajagopalan Raghavan as their new Senior Vice-President HR.

•   Satyendra K. Mallik – Later in the month, Eastman Auto & Power Limited appointed former Group Head HR, Intex Technologies (India) Ltd., Satyendra K. Mallik as President and Chief Human Resources Officer (CHRO). 

• Priyanka Anand – Telecommunications Company Ericsson made a major announcement by elevating Priyanka Anand as HR Head of SEA, Oceania and India. She replaced Ericsson's India region HR head Sameer Khanna, who got relocated to the networks gear maker's Stockholm headquarters to manage global HR in the managed services domain across multiple geographies.

• Vimmi Chachra – In another movement, Sopra Steria India elevates Vimmi Chachra as Head of India, Talent Management. Vimmi has played a crucial role in creating and executing talent management strategy to support organization’s business objectives from last five years. 

• Ranjan Mohapatra - One of India’s largest PSUs, Indian Oil has appointed Ranjan Kumar Mohapatra as Director HR. Before this appointment, he was working as the Executive Director of IOCL’s West Bengal State Office. 

March

• Sudeep Ralhan – The final month of the last quarter of the financial year 2017-18 also witnessed some significant movements. Walmart Labs India names Sudeep Ralhan Senior Director HR. He is responsible for delivery of the overall HR strategy, compensation and talent initiatives. 

• Sumit Neogi - Sumit Neogi starts the second stint with Reliance Industries as VP, HR. In his new role, he his handling a part of services division of Reliance Industries and reports to Ashwani Prashara, CHRO, Reliance Industries. Before joining Reliance Industries, Neogi was working with the pharmaceutical company, Cipla as Senior Director & HR Head. 

• Unmesh Pawar – Undoubtedly the month of March had some extreme movement left to burst out and it came as a surprise to the industry when Unmesh Pawar steps down as Global MD Human Resources, Accenture. After working with Accenture for seventeen years, he decided to exit the company. He shared this news on social networking site Facebook. 

• Sanjay Jorapur – Last but not the least, Sanjay Jorapur, CHRO of one of India’s biggest automotive company steps down. After working with the organization for more than three years, Sanjay has decided to move on from his position. 

Note: We have tried to include all the essential movements among the senior HR leaders. If we have missed anyone, please let us know and we would be happy to include it on our list.