Meenakshi Priyam has joined udaan.com— a B2B trade platform, created specifically for small & medium businesses in India — as group CHRO. She has moved from GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), the pharmaceutical major, where she was CHRO for India and global HR head for classic and established products (CEP).
Priyam had spent just over three years at GSK, where she initially headed HR for India and South Asia for almost two years before being elevated to CHRO India & global HR head CEP in May last year.
Before joining GSK, Priyam had served as head HR – global product strategy & commercialisation (GPS&C) and global functions at Novartis, based out of Basel Area, Switzerland. She had joined Novartis in 2013, as head-HR, in Mumbai, before moving to Switzerland in 2016, for a year and four months.
Her longest stint was with Johnson & Johnson (J&J) where she joined as senior HR business partner in 2006. In less than three years, she worked her way up to become the Total Rewards Lead for two years and three months, before eventually becoming the regional HR director, APAC. She spent over seven years at J&J, during which she handled compensation, benefits, perquisite, and allowance programmes/policies for all J&J companies, including the consumer, medical devices & diagnostics, as well as pharmaceutical businesses in India, Thailand and Vietnam.
While she seems to have spent most of her time in the pharmaceuticals space, in the early years of her career, she has also worked in the banking sector. She served as a senior manager- HR at Yes Bank for two years, before joining J&J.
Having completed an MBA from XLRI Jamshedpur, Priyam has been appreciated for her comprehensive understanding of the technical dimensions of compensation and benefits work, and also for her interpersonal and partnering skills.
As a global HR leader, she has worked across multiple industries in India, Asia-Pacific and Europe. Business Today featured Meenakshi Priyam as one of the best business leaders in India, under 40, in March 2015. Three years later, Business World featured her as one of the most influential women business leaders in India.
