Solving bias structurally
One of the most defining moments in Preeti Ahuja’s career came when she worked with a business where the role of service technician had traditionally never been offered to women.
Many leaders strongly believed women were not suited for these roles and would struggle with travel, field conditions and operational challenges.
Instead of accepting that belief, Ahuja approached it as a systemic issue rather than a capability issue.
“We worked closely with the business to redesign the entire ecosystem. We created inclusive job descriptions, strengthened infrastructure support, established clear safety and travel guidelines, and ensured the workplace environment was truly enabling for women to succeed,” she recalls.
Alongside this, focused programmes for people managers were introduced to address unconscious bias, challenge stereotypes and shift the culture towards inclusion.
The outcome was both visible and measurable. Within a couple of years, women’s representation rose to nearly 30 per cent.
That experience fundamentally shaped Ahuja’s understanding of inclusion.
“Gender bias is not solved through conversation alone. It is solved through deliberate structural change, leadership commitment, and consistent action,” she says.
Today, as global chief people officer at Husk Power, Ahuja leads with the conviction that HR is not about following the business. It is about leading people-centric transformation that accelerates performance.
“Gender bias is solved through structural change, not conversation alone.”
Creating business impact
Early in her career, Ahuja had the opportunity to work closely with senior leadership teams, especially during her time at organisations such as L&T.
That exposure gave her a close view of how CXO-level decisions are shaped, where strategy, growth, risk and people priorities intersect.
She realised that HR leaders are not expected merely to manage policies or processes. They are expected to bring business perspective, foresight and the confidence to challenge constructively.
The experience became a turning point.
It helped her see HR not simply as a support function, but as the bridge between organisational ambition and human capability.
From there, she began evolving from an HR professional into a strategic HR leader, someone who partners with CEOs and business heads, connects talent decisions to business outcomes, and asks difficult but necessary questions.
Do we have the leadership capability to deliver this strategy? Are we building the right culture for growth? Are we future-ready in skills, succession and agility?
That was when Ahuja realised HR was where she could create meaningful business impact.
Respect over popularity
“If you want to be successful, you need to be okay with choosing respect over being liked,” says Ahuja.
Early in her leadership journey, she spent considerable energy trying to maintain harmony, avoid conflict and ensure everyone felt comfortable.
Over time, however, she realised that approach came at a cost, not only to herself but also to her team.
Leadership, she learnt, is not about popularity. It is about integrity, clarity and courage.
The shift required her to stop focusing on pleasing everyone and instead concentrate on making values-led decisions, communicating difficult messages honestly and fairly, and accepting that not every decision would make her popular.
“And that’s okay,” she says.
Over time, she discovered that when leaders act with consistency and integrity, they may not
always be liked, but they earn trust and respect.
Strategic and values-led leadership
Over the years, Ahuja’s leadership style has evolved from being heavily execution-driven to becoming more institution-building oriented.
Today, she focuses on shaping culture, strengthening leadership pipelines and building systems rooted in fairness, accountability, empathy and long-term thinking.
She believes leaders do not merely manage functions. They shape mindsets and influence the next generation of leaders.
At this stage of her career, Ahuja describes her leadership style as strategic, values-led and future-focused.
For her, success is not defined solely by outcomes, but by the principles that endure long after those outcomes are achieved.
Financial performance remains important, but true leadership lies in building organisations that are resilient, ethical and capable of sustaining excellence without compromising human dignity.
Mental wellbeing and psychological safety, therefore, are not soft initiatives in her view. They are strategic priorities.
Sustainable performance requires environments where people feel safe to contribute, innovate and challenge constructively.
Ultimately, her philosophy is rooted in stewardship: leaving behind stronger systems, stronger leaders and stronger values than those inherited.
“If the organisations I help shape can grow profitably while remaining inclusive, ethical, and human-centred, I consider that meaningful leadership success,” states Ahuja.
“Leadership is not about popularity. It is about integrity, clarity and courage.”
Strategic HR in practice
For Ahuja, strategic HR is about shaping the future of the organisation rather than simply managing present-day people processes.
It means partnering closely with the CEO, CFO and board to translate business strategy into workforce strategy, ensuring every people decision contributes directly to organisational outcomes.
In practice, this means aligning talent, leadership pipelines and capability-building efforts with where the business is headed, not where it has been.
It also means building workforce agility by anticipating change, embedding adaptive ways of working and creating flexible systems informed by both data and strategic insight.
Technology and analytics play an increasingly important role in this process.
Ahuja believes AI and workforce analytics should enhance human performance and improve decision-making rather than replace human judgement.
At the same time, she sees culture and employee experience as genuine competitive advantages because inclusive and purpose-led organisations are more innovative, resilient and sustainable.
Quick fire round
What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
Build credibility before you build visibility, because trust is the strongest leadership currency.
If not HR, what career path would you have pursued?
Leadership development and executive coaching.
What energises you most about your work?
Transforming human potential into organisational performance.
Best investment you’ve made in yourself?
Continuous learning, executive education, mentorship and self-reflection.
One skill you’re currently working on developing?
AI-driven people strategy and using data to build smarter, more human-centred workforce decisions.
The unfinished leadership gap
According to Ahuja, meaningful progress has certainly been made in women’s representation across leadership roles.
However, the progress remains uneven.
Women continue to face systemic barriers early in their careers, particularly at the stage where employees move from entry-level positions into first-line management roles, often referred to as the “broken rung”.
This bottleneck significantly affects the leadership pipeline later.
Despite advances, women still hold less than a third of leadership roles globally, even though they represent nearly half the workforce.
They also continue to receive fewer sponsorship opportunities, stretch assignments and leadership-development support, all of which are critical for career progression.
Ahuja believes progress happens when organisations intentionally invest in inclusive talent pipelines, sponsorship ecosystems, equitable evaluation systems and leadership models that recognise diverse career journeys.
“Yet, we still need to push harder on closing the leadership gap, not just in HR but across all enterprise functions, especially in profit-and-loss and operational roles,” she emphasises.
For her, advancing women cannot remain a standalone initiative. It must become embedded in how organisations build leadership and make talent decisions.
Preparing for the future of work
“We are preparing for the future of work by building an AI-driven and agile operating model, one that enables speed, innovation, and sharper decision-making in a rapidly-evolving business environment,” says Ahuja.
As work becomes increasingly digital and dynamic, the focus at Husk Power is on building a workforce that is adaptable, future-ready and comfortable navigating constant change.
A key part of this transformation involves shifting mindsets, moving away from traditional ways of working towards cultures rooted in agility, experimentation, ownership and continuous learning.
The HR function is playing a critical role in enabling this shift by strengthening psychological safety across teams, ensuring employees feel confident sharing ideas, challenging perspectives and learning from failure without fear.
Leadership development is another important pillar of this transformation.
“We are investing in building agile leaders who can lead through uncertainty, coach teams, drive collaboration, and keep the organisation anchored to purpose,” reveals Ahuja.
At Husk Power, HR is not simply supporting organisational change. It is actively shaping the leadership capability, culture and workforce strategy required to build a resilient and future-focused organisation.