‘Venky’ Venkatesh, president-group HR, RPG, to move on after 11-year stint

After a long and successful association with the RPG Group that lasted over 11 years, S ‘Venky’ Venkatesh has decided to move on. In a touching farewell note on social media, Venkatesh says, “Hopefully the sweet taste of many of our exceptional people policies and HR processes lingers on in the company for decades to come, and provides business in particular, the X factor that RPG has become renowned for, and for the HR team a larger purpose and pride in whatever they are doing.”

An alumnus of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Venkatesh began his career with ITC, in 1987. After essaying various HR roles in this conglomerate for over nine years, Venkatesh moved to PowerGen, as director-human resources (India/Middle East). Over three and a half years later, he joined BPL Innovision Business Group, as executive vice president-group HR.

September of 2000 saw him taking on the role of president-group HR, Vedanta Resources. Almost five years later, he switched to Arvind, heading the group HR function as group president, for the conglomerates, spanning fabrics, apparel, brands, retail, financial services, engineering -and its JV companies.

In May 2009, Venkatesh founded Svanishta, a boutique HR consulting firm providing HR advisory services to client companies and their Boards.

After almost five years, Venkatesh began his long and memorable association with the RPG Group in April 2014.

The fact that his tenure has been truly memorable is clear from Venkatesh’s emotional social-media message, where he says it has been a “privilege and honour to lead this extraordinary team of men and women, in the last decade+1 year+ 1 month as I head towards my RPG sunset by end April.” He is confident that the period spent at RPG is one that he “will savour for a lifetime in my memory, like I will savour the wonderful, warm and heart tugging farewell that I received…”

HRKatha wishes ‘Venky’ Venkatesh all the best in his future endeavours.