With more the 10 years of HR experience within both HR management consultancy and corporate HR, Hans Peter Knudsen has worked across all HR areas and are now responsible for the overall HR strategy for Vestas Northern Europe and a member of the senior management team for Vestas Norhtern Europe reporting to the President for the Business unit.

Main responsibility is to develop and execute a strategy plan that links and supports the business strategy with an effectful Workforce and HR strategy. This implies analysis of strategic organisational capabilities and positions and leads to an assessment of the necessary talent and leadership capabilities to meet the business strategy.

Hans Peter Knudsen has an educational background covering both the technical area as well as the organizational. He holds a diploma in electrical installations, a bachelor degree in science and has a master in humanities majoring in organizational culture and communication. This has been supplemented with executive HR and Management programs at Michigan University and INSEAD.

Dr. Shree then started deploying across the automotive, high speed printing, contract electronic manufacturing, and consumer electronics across the US and Asia Pacific in Japan (with Panasonic part of Matsushita in 2000 in Tsunashima). He was conferred the SPOT (Service, Professionalism, Outstanding and Trust) award from Six Sigma Qualtec for creating the record of an unbreakable 42 days of activities across three clients. Since then he has deployed in the mining (underground and open cast) companies in South America and South Africa (served over 500 professionals since 1997) contributing to a total of more than US $ 525 Million to date in direct savings for his employers and clients over the last decade.

Since the late summer of 2006, he has piloted and deployed change within the renewable energy industry delivering close to US $ 100 Million in direct benefits across the Asia Pacific region (Singapore, India, Denmark, Australia, and China) for Vestas in their business excellence initiative. His activities since then included deploying process excellence and change management with the US Army for The George Group (now called Accenture) in their bases across North America.

During these past years he had also designed, patented, commercialized, and serviced customers with a hardware used on lean Six Sigma training called the Multipult (US Patent 7,438,068). Over the last few years, his team at MGBS, has been retained as the internal change agent consultant to execute the china strategy toward a client’s needs in the wind energy industry in their supply chain development process. He holds a Degree in Chemical Engineering from IIT Chennai and a PhD Degree in Polymer Science from the University of Southern Mississippi. He has 4 other US process patents including one on renewable resources for gasohol production in the US. Dr. Shree’s work also includes introducing APEx (Academic and Professional Excellence) skills enhancement to being operationally ready from day-one at their future employer.

P. V. has held various positions within Coca-Cola before moving into his current role. He has spent 12 years with Coca-Cola so far and has got exposed to Indian and Global HR practices.

P.V.‘s competencies include Executive Coaching, Training and development, HR processes & System, Strategy, Employee relations etc. He is happily married to Bhavani and is blessed with two sons, Nitish and Manish.

She started her career at Blue Star Limited, Mumbai in HR and Employee Relations function and later branched out to Marketing and Projects. She joined ITW Signode India, a division of ITW India Limited in 1991 in corporate communications and after a substantial stint in market development for new products and in new geographies, she is now Chief Human Resource Officer, responsible for Signode India and Middle East. She is also a key member of the integration team for assimilation of a recent acquisition in East Africa. Over the years she has worked with ITW India top management to bring new businesses of ITW into India.

For the past several years, she has been working at strategic and tactical levels to achieve the HR vision of the Company – to become ‘the best employer’. Primary focus is on evolving HR strategy and processes to add competitive advantage to business, talent development and retention, leadership development through competence building and building a great place to work and grow. At ITW Signode, she lead the team that developed ePACE, a web enabled system for employee potential assessment and career enhancement (patent applied for). Under her HR leadership, ITW Signode has achieved SAIL HR Excellence Award in July 2009.

She has authored articles on Flexible Employment Practices and Succession Management which have been published by Employer’s Federation of India and ICFAI Press, respectively. Currently she is a member of the Human Resources and Corporate Social Responsibility panels of CII Hyderabad.

Mali is very active professionally. He has been the President of the IT Industry HR Association of Karnataka for well over 8 years. He has also been a member of the CII National HR Committee for over 10 years besides being the HR Panel Chair for the CII Karnataka for a couple of times. Mali is also a mentor for the NASSCOM’s mentorship panel that selects and mentors IT and ITES companies in the SME segment and nurtures them to higher levels of growth. Mali is one of the four architects who designed and delivered the HR Competency Framework developed under the aegis of CII and National HRD Network. This framework has since then become a beacon for the HR professionals in India.

Mali is on the Governing Boards and Board of Studies of various reputed Business Schools in India such as School of Inspired Leadership (SOIL) Delhi, Bharathidasan Institute of Management (BIM) Trichy, Kirloskar Institute of Advanced Management Studies (KIAMS) Harihar and Symbiosis Institute of Business Management (SIBM) Pune. He is a regular visiting faculty at IIM-Bangalore, Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies (NMIMS University), Symbiosis University in India besides Gutherberg University in Sweden and Vienna University in Austria. A frequently invited speaker at National and International Conferences, Mali is a well respected thought leader in the areas of HR Strategy, Measurement of HR, business strategy, Innovation, leadership and total quality management.

Mali is a certified auditor for the European Quality Award (EFQM). During his tenure with Royal Philips Electronics, Mali has audited several Philips organizations worldwide as a core member of the audit/assessment team. Mali has published over 200 articles in various reputed journals and news papers on various aspects of HR, leadership and personal development besides contributing chapters to a few books on HR. Mali did his Masters in Personnel Management and Industrial Relations from the autonomous Loyola College, Chennai which he passed out with Golden Jubilee Gold Medal.

At GE Bala helped to lead successful integrations, turnarounds and build capacity for Growth. Before joining GE, Bala was with a Venture Capital fund called eVentures a SoftBank and News Corp JV. Prior to that he led HR for the Consumer Banking of Standard Chartered Bank in India and was earlier Training Manager at Asian Paints. Bala completed his Masters at Loyola College, Chennai and his MS in Industrial Management from IIT Chennai.

An alumnus of XLRI Jamshedpur and Harvard Business School in Information technology, Ravi is an Executive Coach at ISB, Hyderabad for their Senior Management Leadership Program.

Ravi is also a great listener, a keen reader, an avid traveler and a connoisseur of food! “

He has motivated audiences in different countries and has earned the recognition of many people from all walks of life. Palan’s 5 I’ s – Introduce, Involve, Interact, Instruct and Intensify Retention is based on sound theoretical models and extensive research.

With his electrifying dynamism and persuasiveness, he entertains and at the same time educates his audience. He makes them embrace, absorb and celebrate the message. His energy, simplicity, experience, knowledge, goodwill and humour have always made his sessions a power packed one. With his charm and professional influencing ability, participants are usually influenced.

Palan has worked in five different countries in a variety of human resources, marketing, and teaching and leadership positions both in public and private sector. He is an Accredited member of the National Speakers Association, U.S.A., American Society of Training & Development and Society of Human Resource Management, USA.

Palan’s current interests include Workplace Competency Management, The FUN approach to Learning, Performance Management & Measurement, HR Technologies – HRDPower.net, Talent Management and Inspiring the workforce.

Palan is the pioneer of the renowned Trainers Meet Trainers (TMT) ® and The Asia HRD CongressTM. Palan has authored several books. They include the following titles Competency Management: A practitioner’s guide, Performance Management & Measurement: The Asian Context, The Magic of Making Training FUN!! And Creating Your Own Rainbow.

Prior to Tesco, Sudheesh has worked in Operations and HR. 10 years with Asian Paints and five years with Collabera. He has also worked on an assignment with Booz Allen & Hamilton on Organization & Strategy.

Sudheesh is an Electronics engineer and has done is MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Kolkata. Vedic recitation and fitness are a passion with Sudheesh.

Sudheesh is a member of various industry HR forums and is often invited to speak in India & overseas.

Narayan has a Bachelor’s Degree in Production Engineering from PSG College of Technology, Coimbatore, India and a Master of Science in Industrial Administration from Purdue University, West Lafayette, USA.

Professional Experience and Responsibilities:

Narayan joined the WS Group in 1994. WS Group headquartered in Chennai, India has interests in Electrical Power Transmission and Distribution and in Engineering Plastics.

He is currently the Managing Director of the Group’s flagship company, W.S. Industries (India) Limited (“WSI”) and heads its Insulator business. WSI was established in 1961. The company manufactures Porcelain Insulators for Electrical High Voltage Transmission and Distribution applications. It is one of the main players in India in the Insulator business and also exports its products to several countries across the globe. In addition, the company also undertakes Turnkey Engineering Projects in the same field.

He is mainly responsible for WSI becoming a leader in Indian Industry in the implementation of state-of-the-art Cost Management Practices like Activity Based Costing (“ABC”), Activity Based Management (“ABM”) etc. Under his leadership, WSI has aggressively ventured into global markets and today its products are in service in around 45 countries across the globe.

He is also currently a Director on the Board of the Group’s Engineering Plastics Company, Hydro S & S Industries Limited (“HSSIL”).

HSSIL was promoted by the WS Group in 1987. The company is a market leader in India in the manufacture and sale of Reinforced Thermoplastic Compounds for use in the Automotive and Domestic Appliance Sectors.

He led the company as its Managing Director September 2002 till July 2009. During his tenure , he played a key role in the company’s growth in terms of markets, assets, new plants, new products etc and most importantly, in both its topline and bottom-line.

Positions in Industry Bodies:

Narayan is very active with the Confederation of Indian Industry (“CII”). His current positions are :

» Member of the Southern Regional Council.
» Chairman of the Power Sector Task Force set up by the CII Southern Regional Council.
» Member of the National Exports Committee.
» Member of the National Skills Council.
» Member of the Advisory Council of the CII Institute of Quality.

Narayan spearheaded CII’s work in the area of ITI – IMC Modernisation Scheme in the Southern Region.

Narayan was one of the founding members of CII’s Young Indians. He played a leading role in the development of the Organization and was the National Vice Chairman between 2004 – 06 and subsequently the National Chairman during 2006 – 07. He continues to be active on the Core Committee of the Organisation.

Narayan is also a member of the Board of Governors of the Institute for Financial Management and Research (“IFMR”). He is playing an active role in the development of a new Vision for the Institute and leading the implementation of the same.

She is currently the Head of Information Product Solutions (India Business Leader) with Mercer and is based out of Chennai.

Varghese is a mentor for several CEOs and sits on the boards of two companies. He has appeared in several television and print media including BBC, CNBC, NDTV, and TimesNow as an expert on the topic. Varghese was chosen to guest edit the 2008 New Year edition of Times of India as a “Young Achiever Making a Difference to India’s Future”.

Prior to this, Varghese was a Principal Consultant for UNO based out of London. Varghese was a research associate at the London School of Economics where he has also done his masters from with a scholarship. He has also done his MBA and Bachelor’s in Economics with gold medals.

Prior to Interweave, Nirmala was the Diversity and Employee Relations leader for IBM, India where she gained wide and specific experience in the area of diversity management. Her stint in IBM also gave her opportunities to work with cross-cultural teams from across most countries in APAC, Ireland, Canada, Mexico and the United States.

She is also an active member of Nasscom’s D&I Steering Committee and has been a representative in the international advisory group of the UN Global Compact & the UNIFEM to finalise the Women’s Empowerment Principles. She has also been on the Editorial Advisory Board of DTUI’s “Strategic Diversity & Inclusion Management” – a one of its kind magazine for practicing diversity professionals.

A graduate of XLRI, Nirmala has an additional Masters in Human Resources Administration from Temple University in Philadelphia, USA.

In her almost 16 years at Infosys she was responsible for:·
» Building a high-performing, results-driven 200 strong ‘Business Partner HR’ organization that can attract and retain talent while achieving business and profitability objectives.
» Driving HR effectiveness in business units through the entire cycle of employee assimilation, resource deployment, talent engagement, employee welfare, HR Branding, performance management and retention management
» Chief Architect of four key organizational restructurings to support new business objectives and strategy
» Instrumental in creating, setting up and defining the roles and responsibilities of diversity and sustainability for the Infosys group of companies.

Previous work experience with organisations such as NIIT, Wipro Systems Ltd and Raymonds in a multitude of roles. She is a member of the CII Karnataka Women Business Leaders Forum and Heads the sub-committee on Multi generational Diversity for NASSCOM.

Jacob holds a Bachelor in International Economics and Public Entrepreneurship from Jonkoping International Business School, Sweden, and a Post Graduate Diploma in Business Management (HR) from Welingkar Institute of Management, Mumbai, India.