Padmanabhan quit the Vedanta Group in August, 2015.
Rajesh Padmanabhan has joined the Welspun Group— a three billion dollar business conglomerate dealing in pipes, plates and coils, as well as the home textiles sector— as director and CHRO. Welspun also has presence in other verticals, such as steel, infrastructure and energy.
The size of the company’s workforce is around 24,000 people.
Prior to this, Padmanabhan was president and group CHRO, Vedanta.
Padmanabhan, who has postgraduated in HR as well as finance, from Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies, started his career with the ICICI group, handling systems on mainframes, and went on to become a corporate banker.
In 1997, he took the big plunge into HR and managed HR startups within the group. In 1999, he was elevated as vice president-HR, at ICICI Infotech, where he witnessed the convergence of business and HR.
At Essel Propack, his next destination, he combined the HR and business roles. He was one of the early movers in India to globalise HR and managed to take it to locations, such as the US, Latin America, UK, Germany, Egypt, China, South East Asia, Russia and Nepal.
In 2004, he took over as EVP and group HR- Oberoi Centre for Learning & Development, at the Oberoi group. There, he ensured the holistic convergence of leadership development and skill building, for creation of business value and excellence.
From Oberoi, he moved to Patni Computer Services as EVP & CHRO. In the three years that he spent there, he created customer–centric global HR models across geographies with learning skills. He helped build frameworks and run complex yet efficient structures for creation of customer and enterprise value.
Between 2010 and 2014, he worked with Capgemini, as CV-P & CHRO, where he won the prestigious UN Award for building diversity and inclusive practices.
At his next stop, Vedanta Resources, he created the platform for enabling businesses with cost-effective strategies, culture building and effective leadership. He ensured growth of the people with a clear vision, capability development and high engagement levels across the group.
