Rajesh Nair moves from Polycab to join Jindal Steel & Power, as head-HR Commercial

After 28 years at Tata Motors across business & HR roles, and three years serving as the CHRO, Polycab, Rajesh Nair’s LinkedIn post says he is “excited to join Jindal Steel & Power” as head-HR Commercial.

Nair, who studied mechanical engineering at University of Mumbai and went on to complete and MBA from Sydenham Institute of Management, also did an executive MBA from Carnegi Mellon University-Tepper School of Business ( through the CII-Fulbright Fellowship for Leadership in Management).

His career began with a humble sales executive position with Pertech Computers in 1990, but a year later, he joined Tata Motors. For 18 years, he held various leadership roles in sales, marketing, new business development in the passenger vehicle business. In 2011, he became general manager HR-corporate. More than six years into this role, he was elevated to the position of head HR-commercial vehicles-sales and customer care, in 2018. In this role, he was based out of Mumbai, successfully leading strategic HR activities for sales, marketing and customer support teams of 1600 employees. This responsibility entailed managing all facets of HR, overseeing and providing direction on issues of leadership, white-collar staffing, HR policy formulation, succession planning, learning, performance planning and diversity.

In May 2021, he moved from Tata Motors to Polycab, as executive president and CHRO. During his three-year long tenure, he set up all HR verticals of compensation and beneifts, performance management, learning and development (L&D), talent management, HR tech & analytics, taleng acquisition (TA) and HRBP. He also onboarded more than 60 senior leaders from across industries, introduced fresh talent programmes for engineers, management and sales trainees.

HRKatha wishes Rajesh Nair all the best in his new assignment at Jindal Steel & Power.