Kumar Venkatraman is the new chief human resources office (CHRO) at Gallagher Service Centre LLP (GSC). In his new role, Venkatraman will be responsible for GSC’s human resources strategy in toto, as well as its people functions, including talent management, leadership development, compensation & benefits, change management and inclusion.
An alumnus of the University of Madras, Venkatraman was associated with the Rane Group, IMC, and Bharat Shell in the initial years of his career.
In 1999, he joined Servion Global Solutions as senior manager – HR. For over two years, he managed the entire gamut of HR initiatives reporting directly to the managing director. In 2001, he moved to Symphony Services Corp as senior director – human resources. Less than two and a half years later, he joined Symphony Marketing Solutions as head – HR. When Symphony Marketing Solutions was acquire by Genpact, he was appointed as VP – HR. He successfully essayed this role for a year and seven months, based out of Bangalore.
His next stint was with Hewlett-Packard, where he served as country manager – HR for over three years. From 2014 to 2019, he was with First Advantage. First as VP-HR and then as senior VP – HR.
He then moved on to DAMAC Properties as senior vice president – people & performance for an eleven month stint, based out of Dubai.
After a year’s sabbatical in 2020, the veteran HR strategist has now joined Ghallagher — the global insurance brokerage, risk management, and HR & benefits consulting company — where he will work closely with the executive leadership team to continue building a talent strategy that attracts, retains, and develops the best people based on business goals.
Given his two-decade long experience, Vishal Jain, global chief service officer, Gallagher, is confident that Venkatraman “will steer us through this new transformational phase and help us to achieve our ambitious growth plans”.
As Jain points out, “given our large existing employee base of over 7,300 and the expected growth in the next few years, we need to assess and refine our people management strategy”, for which
Venkatraman is the ideal choice, considering his “leadership experience in people management, transformation, and change management”.
Having worked in the manufacturing, IT, ITES, and services domains, Venkatraman has been recognised as a Global HR Leader by the World HR Congress in 2016, 2017, and 2018.
He plans to “create an inclusive work experience by bringing in relevant, cutting-edge people management initiatives that will allow Gallagher to harness innate talent potential as well as attract and develop top talent at all stages”.
Gallagher operates in 68 countries, and has recently acquired India-based Edelweiss Gallagher Insurance Brokers foraying into the insurance marketspace in India.
