Essar’s group president HR, Adil Malia calls it quits

Malia to start a new venture in the management consulting space.

After a decade with the Essar Group, its long-time group president-HR, Adil Malia, has resigned from his position. Malia joined the group in 2006 and has been heading people management globally for the $40 billion conglomerate, employing over 70000 people worldwide.

Malia, who began his career at the age of 19, as a legal assistant, reached the top management echelons working with esteemed organisations, such as Godrej, GE, Al-Futtaim and Coca-Cola before joining Essar. Malia is leaving to wear the entrepreneurial hat along with a few other industry veterans. Together, they plan to enter the management consulting space.

Malia told HRKatha, “We are a group of five people and we plan to establish a management consulting organisation, which is going to look at business transformation, bespoke HR practices, change management and more. It’s going to be a boutique of specific solutions for effective management of businesses.”

Drawing on his experience of over three decades now, Malia is looking to help businesses perform better – “particularly the new class of businesses coming up in the millennial world as there are huge challenges they are facing,” he says. Handholding these businesses and blending futuristic ideas with the backing of long-time experience from the past, is what this consulting organisation will aim to provide.

While it must have been difficult for the organisation to let go of a seasoned professional like Malia, the Essar Group recently accepted his decision to resign. “I finally had to put my foot down, as I did not want to continue the same journey for another decade however enriching, as I was eager to change course and start something afresh.”

A much sought-after speaker, mentor and coach, Malia thoughtfully shares his reasons behind this move, as he says, “No matter how great the words be, if you do not pause sufficiently in between words, the sentence loses its meaning. Careers are no different. One needs to pause in between and periodically redirect the course. However great a story maybe, a new story has to be told. The old story, therefore, has to end!”

Malia will be serving his notice till January, 2017 and from then onwards he will dedicate his time to planning and executing his new venture, which should be out and running a few months later. A regular writer and doodler, Malia also plans to start writing a book on ‘future-smart people enterprises’ that he has pondering over for some time. In addition, Malia plans to rekindle his music interests by indulging in some guitar playing as he works to strike a balance between his professional and personal endeavours.