Jan 2017 – Present · 9 yrs 4 mos · Bengaluru, Karnataka, India · On-site

• in 2017, Anil Ethanur and I, with a passionate team, Co-Founded Xpheno. Xpheno means 'Extend your Expression.' It is founded on our common belief in people’s abilities and their impact on the world. We have resolved to bring people and companies together to contribute to creating a high-performing specialist workforce.
• Xpheno offers Direct Hire, IT Staffing, Engineering Services and Sales Staffing. Over the last 8 years, Xpheno has recruited and deployed 28,000 professionals in Marquee brands.
• In the last three years, Xpheno has partnered with over 30 GCC Greenfields in GBS, IT, and Engineering skills, gaining expertise in the specialist staffing space.

Nov 2016 – Present · 9 yrs 6 mos · Bengaluru, Karnataka, India

• I write a monthly column under the section People@Work, which appears on a Monday, reflecting on the workplace dynamics and leadership-related themes, blending my experiences and anecdotes. Over the last years, we have added a podcast on the same theme where we invite Industry Leaders to share their views on the same.

Feb 2016 – Present · 10 yrs 3 mos · Bengaluru, Karnataka, India

Dec 2014 – Oct 2016 · 1 yr 10 mos · Bangalore

• After my assignment in Malaysia, I concurrently ran Kelly Services Staffing businesses in India and their solutions business, which comprised MSP and RPO offerings. We scaled up some marque greenfield GCCs in the Banking and Automotive sectors

Mar 2014 – Dec 2014 · 9 mos · Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

• I did a concurrent assignment in 2014 managing India and Malaysia for Kelly. Kelly is a clear market leader in Malaysia in the staffing space. I enjoyed my learnings working for a market leader. It was a unique situation, 3 weeks in a month I worked with a mindset of a market leader in Malaysia and a week in India as a challenger.

Jun 2011 – Sep 2016 · 5 yrs 3 mos · Bengaluru Area, India · Hybrid

• The Indian Staffing Industry market is estimated to be about 15 Billion USD by ISF. Indian Staffing Federation's affiliate companies have facilitated over 15 million formal jobs in the last decade. Indian Staffing Federation has been formed by the leading staffing companies in India, and it has the following objectives:
• 1. Champion sustainable growth in the Staffing Industry
• 2. Facilitate a suitable legal and regulatory environment that is positive and supportive for the Staffing Industry
• 3. Be the authoritative voice of the Staffing Industry & Increase visibility and enhance the image of the Staffing Industry
• 4. Establish quality standards for the Staffing Industry at large & a code of conduct for the members
• 5. Promote Staffing as an effective enabler of socio-economic growth
• 6. Develop Staffing Industry as a choice of employment

Oct 2009 – Oct 2016 · 7 yrs · Bengaluru, Karnataka, India · On-site

• Joined as Kelly Services' India's Country General Manager. The mandate was to make Kelly' profitable in India. We had a young and talented team that rallied around this cause and, in the process, developed a fine set of future leaders for the TA and recruitment industry.
• We hired a few senior leaders from the Industry, experimented with new product lines, built up the Professional and Technical businesses, scaled down the commercial staffing business to get the value and volume mix right and became a profitable entity in India. On this foundation, Kelly also launched its consulting business called KellyOCG, which ran a few marque MSPs and also won a few Greenfield GCC RPOs.
• These 7+ years, I got to do some interesting stuff. Running Kelly's staffing business was my day job. Still, I also got to do concurrent stints with Kelly Malaysia as their MD, become the founding trustee for the Indian Staffing Federation, and Lead KellyOCG, to list a few.
• In 2016, PERSOL (Then known as Temp Holdings), the second-largest Japanese recruiting company, entered into a JV with Kelly in APAC for their Staffing Business. At this stage, Kelly India was split into two legal entities, one of which did staffing, known as PERSOLKELLY, and the other was the MSP+RPO entity KellyOCG. After appointing the successors to these 2 entities, I moved on to cofound Xpheno.

Jun 2001 – Sep 2009 · 8 yrs 3 mos · Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia · On-site

• Started as a Business Development Consultant for Temp Staffing in Ma Foi Bangalore and built a strong base of profitable business for 18 months.
• This took me to Chennai, where I headed the Tamil Nadu & Kerala Operations for another 18 months. I enjoyed the exposure of launching 7 branches in Tier 2 cities.
• From 2004, I took responsibility for Vedior's Malaysia Operations, running Select Appointments and Ma Foi Brands as CEO.
• In 2007, I took charge of Ma Foi's APAC operations based in Kuala Lumpur. I relished starting up China, Hong Kong, and Thailand operations and turning around the Singapore staffing operations in this role. This tenure allowed me to absorb the nuances of learning to lead a multinational team consisting of 12 nationalities.
• After Randstad's global acquisition of Vedior, all the APAC operations were successfully integrated under the region's Randstad brand in 2009. This made Randstad the second-largest recruitment company and was on the Fortune 500 list. I took up the assignment to join Kelly at this juncture.

Mar 1998 – May 2001 · 3 yrs 2 mos · Bengaluru, Karnataka, India

• I joined XCyton, a VC-funded Startup company, as Marketing Manager for Karnataka and then moved onto manage XCyton's Pan India sales operations as AGM. I was part of the initial team, which was brought together to build the sales and distribution network across India.XCyton was the first to develop HIV Detection Diagnostic Kits indigenously. XCyton also introduced two unique diagnostic kits for Hepatitis C and Neuro-Cysticircosis, respectively. This was the period I traveled across India & met India's leading Microbiologists & Pathologists.

Nov 1994 – Dec 1997 · 3 yrs 1 mo · Lucknow Area, India

• Eli Lilly hired me from College as a Trainee Territory Manager to launch their diabetes & Critical care products in Western Andhra Pradesh, then moved onto Mangalore (Coastal Karnataka) as Territory Manager. During this Time I was the top seller for their Insulin brand in the country.
• I got promoted after 18 months as Area Sales Manager and was based in Lucknow, I became responsible for sales in Central UP covering ten Districts. It was my first experience as a manager of 6 Territory Managers to execute the sales strategy in Uttar Pradesh.
• I gained valuable experience in Selling skills and structured training in Managerial Skills. My own Knowledge of Biology and Pharma Industry got enhanced during this time