Delnaz Desai has joined Mahindra Group as vice president – group talent head, taking charge of the Group’s enterprise-wide talent management agenda. In her new role, Desai will focus on employer branding, talent attraction and retention, leadership development, succession planning and building the talent ecosystem to support growth across Mahindra Group’s diverse businesses.
With around two decades of experience in human resources and talent leadership, Desai brings expertise spanning talent management, HR business partnering, leadership capability, organisational effectiveness, culture, employee engagement and inclusion. Her career has included senior HR roles across FMCG, telecom, shipping and technology, as well as experience managing people agendas across India and Singapore.
Prior to joining Mahindra Group, Desai was talent lead & HR business partner, AMEA Snacks (Pringles) at Kellanova in Singapore. She joined Kellanova in January 2024 as Senior Associate Director – HRBP for Supply Chain & R&D and later moved into her regional talent role in July 2024.
At Kellanova, Desai partnered with regional leadership on talent, leadership capability, culture and engagement. She also spearheaded capability-building initiatives, including IDP-led learning calendars, leadership programmes and talent acquisition excellence frameworks.
Before Kellanova, Desai spent over four years with Kellogg Company, where she held a series of senior HR roles. As senior associate director – talent & corporate HR, she partnered with functions including marketing, finance, IT and legal, while also managing global IT HR operations from India. She worked on strengthening talent acquisition, succession planning and leadership pipelines, while also advancing equity, diversity and inclusion initiatives and employee engagement programmes.
Earlier, as associate director – sales HR, Desai partnered with the sales leadership team for a workforce of more than 300 employees, focusing on workforce planning, succession and capability-building. She also held the role of associate director – corporate HR.
Desai’s experience in telecom includes a stint with Vodafone Idea as HR Business Partner, Marketing, following nearly three years with Vodafone as GM – business HR. At Vodafone, she led the HR agenda for around 700 employees and worked across inclusion, capability building, succession planning, managerial development and retention.
She began her career in HR with Wipro Technologies in 2006 as assistant manager – leadership hiring, where she worked on leadership and niche hiring, resourcing and manpower planning for global accounts.
Desai subsequently moved to Maersk Line, where she spent more than three years across several HR roles. She supported commercial and operations functions across geographies and worked on leadership talent frameworks and employee engagement initiatives.
She holds an MBA in Human Resources from SVKM’s Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies (NMIMS).
