Fitelo, a wellness and fitness services platform, has hired Jitender Panihar as its new CHRO. Talking exclusively to HRKatha, Panihar shares that in this role he will lead the talent acquisition, culture, rewards and learning functions at the firm.
Panihar shares with HRKatha, that he would be working closely with the founders, board and vibrant young professionals to create an organisation of the future fuelled with purpose and passion.
“Fitelo is changing and impacting the lives of thousands of customers across the globe by helping them lead healthy and fit lives. My role is to help build a people-first customer obsessed culture at Fitelo, and scale the organisation for the next level of aggressive growth,” reveals Panihar to HRKatha exclusively.
His immediate focus in this role will be to help the organisation ready for scale, build people processes and systems for growth and manage the future of work in the current context of remote work. “I am excited to create a performance-driven culture and attract high performers and potentials who will build a health-tech which disrupts the global market from India!” says Panihar.
“Culture can make or break a company. At Fitelo, we boast of a people-first culture. Jitender’s diverse background in consulting, knowledge of the health-tech domain, and experience working with startups will help us strengthen our people function practices,” adds Sahil Bansal, CEO & co-founder, Fitelo on Panihar’s appointment.
Prior to this role, Panihar was leading the global HR function at MoEngage for the US, APAC and the Middle East markets.
With close to 15 years of experience in HR, Panihar has worked with brands such as PwC and Deloitte.
After completing a post-graduate diploma in personnel management from the Symbiosis Institute Of Management Studies, Panihar started his career with Cerebrus Consultants as a management trainee. In the initial phase of his career, he gained experience and expertise in compensation & benefits, organisation effectiveness and capability-building interventions. Moreover, Panihar was also able to hone his skills in areas such as client delivery, client engagement, project management and business development.
After working for a little more than three years with Cerebrus, Panihar moved to Deloitte as a management consultant in human capital. In this role, Panihar provided strategic HR solutions to major manufacturing organisations in change management and organisation design. After working with Deloitte for close to three years, Panihar joined PwC.
It was in 2015 that Panihar joined Healthkart as head of HR. There, he played a crucial role in scaling up the organisation by four times and transforming the culture of the organisation to that of a performance oriented and ownership-driven one with focus on capability development. Panihar spent a successful three-year long tenure with Healthkart before joining MoEngage in 2019.
Admitting that it was the vision, clarity and core values that really attracted him to explore the startup space one again, Panihar says, “Fitelo is an exciting, young and exuberant startup, which is disrupting the way people lead and manage their lives. At such an early stage in the organisation, founders and investors have an intent to focus on a culture and purpose-led workplace, which is very exciting.”