Kautilya Desai has been elevated to chief people officer, Adani Enterprises. In this new role, he will be overseeing corporate services for Adani Agri Fresh and Adani Oil & Gas.
Desai has been with Adani Enterprises since 2019. He joined the company’s Ahmedabad office as its senior-HR business partner. Prior to this, Desai also held many key leadership positions at Vodafone Idea.
Desai joined Vodafone in 2007 as its deputy manager-HR and oversaw its compensation & benefits strategy along with performance management and HR operations. Climbing up the ladder, he was elevated to the role of senior manager-HR. After six years, Desai joined 3WAY in the year 2014 as partner for a short stint before moving back to Vodafone.
In 2015, Desai joined Vodafone as general manager-HR. Two years into this role, when the company merged with Idea in 2018, Desai steered HR as its general manager – HRBP corporate Pune & VIVL. In this role, he managed HR operations and talent acquisition.
In his initial career days, Desai also worked with Reliance Industries for over five years, starting 2001-2007 as its manager-HR. After that, he moved to Reliance Communications for about six months.
With strong business development skills, his expertise lies in customer- relationship management (CRM), recruiting, vendor management, and management.
Desai is an alumnus of The Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda and is well known for his excellent interpersonal skills.
