Beauty giant L’Oréal has appointed Rasika Malhotra as human resources (HR) director for India, succeeding Roshni Wadhwa, who will take on the role of HR transformation director – South Asia Pacific, Middle East, and North Africa (SAPMENA). 

In her new role Malhotra will be responsible for building capabilities, a culture of enablement, collaboration, and HR excellence for enabling L’Oréal India to be a future-ready organisation. 

Malhotra brings over two decades of diverse experience across international geographies and domains of manufacturing, oil & gas, consumer products, FMCG, B2B, and technology. 

She has solid experience in business partnering and strategy, organisation development, talent management, driving change, HR transformation, cultural integration, and diversity and inclusion.

“I am excited and energised to join a team of strong and committed people, drive culture as our competitive advantage and enable the organisation to achieve our growth ambition, by unlocking the true potential of our people and creating the beauty that moves the world,” said Malhotra. 

In her new role, Wadhwa will be responsible to drive change and ensure governance for all of L’Oréal’s HR transformation programmes in SAPMENA. 

Wadhwa started with L’Oréal as an HR business partner of the consumer products division in India, in July 2013. She later moved to Singapore in 2015 as HR director for L’Oréal in Singapore, before returning to India in February 2017 as HR director for L’Oréal in India. 

In the past six years, Wadhwa has been instrumental in creating and executing country HR strategy, impacting business growth, digital and culture transformation, and exceptional work done on COVID reach-out programmes.

As the HR transformation director – SAPMENA, she will lead the change leads and workstream leaders in the SAPMENA zone and countries and work in close collaboration with stakeholders. She will also be responsible for the deployment of our new HR excellence centre model across all COEs in SAPMENA. 

“With transformation in business and work culture, we have an ambitious plan to transform the way we engage with our people within the organisation and to strengthen our HR excellence, people-centricity, and managerial effectiveness - all backed by strong technology. I look forward to taking on this new role and creating a robust change agenda around HR practices across all countries in SAPMENA. I am delighted to welcome Rasika to L’Oréal and pass on the baton to her. I’m confident that she will continue to uphold this commitment in India, by keeping our people at the heart of everything we do,” said Wadhwa.