Technology company, Continental, has appointed Ajay Kumar as head, human relations, India. Kumar will be responsible for both the Automotive and Rubber Groups in India, covering over 8000 employees spread across 15 locations, eight manufacturing plants and eight legal entities.He will be spearheading initiatives to build transformational leadership and a progressive work culture. Kumar will also ensure deployment of solutions to enhance competence, performance, and employee engagement.
Earlier, Kumar was head-HR for Continental’s Technical Centre India (TCI), the in-house R&D centre for Continental globally. He was instrumental in leading TCI’s rapid growth in India, bringing the headcount to over 3000 engineers supporting all three automotive divisions of Continental, for its global and regional markets. Today, TCI is well on its way to becoming a centre of competence for different technologies, such as artificial intelligence(AI) and ADAS technologies.
Commenting on the appointment, Prashanth Doreswamy, market head, Continental India, says, “In Kumar, we see a progressive leader who will be at the helm of steering Continental’s strong value system, complementing the organisation’s accelerated growth. We have a focused vision for human relations at Continental called ‘Future Work’, which includes diversity, leadership, flexibility, and learning, as its key components. With his expertise and an impressive track record,I am confident that Kumar will drive Continental India towards realising this vision.”
Having completed his graduation in economics and statistics from the University of Calicut, this college topper of his batch did his masters in human resource management from Pune university.
Prashant Doreswamy
“In Kumar, we see a progressive leader who will be at the helm of steering Continental’s strong value system, complementing the organisation’s accelerated growth. We have a focused vision for human relations at Continental called ‘Future Work’, which includes diversity, leadership, flexibility, and learning, as its key components. With his expertise and an impressive track record,I am confident that Kumar will drive Continental India towards realising this vision.”
Kumar started his career as an HR executive with Patheja forgings and autoparts and then honed his skills in human resource management while working with Larsen and Turbo Infotech for over 10 years.
In his own words, “As a technology company, we are rapidly scaling up in terms of business and headcount, with our India headcount poised to touch 10000 by 2020. My priority will be to support this by striving to make Continental a preferred employer in our industries in India.”
Kumar joined Continental India in 2015 and has over two decades of HR leadership experience. In addition to leading the rapid growth of TCI, he was also instrumental in streamlining HR practices at TCI for which the organisation received several industry accolades for HR best practices from premier industry bodies. He himself is a recipient of several prestigious HR leadership awards.
Ajay Kumar
“As a technology company, we are rapidly scaling up in terms of business and headcount, with our India headcount poised to touch 10000 by 2020. My priority will be to support this by striving to make Continental a preferred employer in our industries in India.”
Kumar has also worked with Bosch India for over six years as the general manager, HR. There he managed the people side of the business for 3500 engineers. He also shouldered the additional responsibility of strategically leading the talent acquisition initiatives for the engineering and R&D divisions of the organisation. He facilitated business growth through designing and deploying effective HR practices.
