Nikhil Gupta, who was global head – talent acquisition, employer branding and HR operations at Strides, will now be spearheading HR at IOL Chemicals and Pharmaceuticals, as president – HR.
An the alumnus of the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta, Gupta started off his professional journey with PCCW Global as senior consultant in 2000, handling talent acquisition for technology and c-commerce (B2B and B2C) businesses across Asia-Pacific, including Hong Kong, Singapore, Philippines, China and Malaysia. Two years later, he joined ABC Consultants as head – telecom practice.
In 2005, he joined Aircel as head – people & practice, leading the Human Resource function for the North & East India operations. After a successful tenure of three years, he moved to Telenor India in 2008 as head – talent acquisition and HR business partnering. Based out of Gurgaon, he shouldered the responsibility of ramping up the workforce from zero to over 3,000 to ensure timely commercial launch across India.
Gupta’s next stop was Spectranet, where he headed human resources for two years. In addition to leading talent acquisition, HR operations, learning & development, compensation & benefits and administration functions, he was part of the management team for all strategic and critical decisions. This stint lasted two years, and by 2014, Gupta was heading talent acquisition and employer branding (India and global markets) at Jubilant Life Sciences. He successfully managed talent acquisition for pharmaceuticals and Life Sciences ingredients businesses across India, the US, the UK and emerging markets for well over three years.
In 2017, Gupta was appointed head – HR at Haldiram Snacks. During this short stint of less than two years, he developed and executed the HR strategy in line with the group business strategy, promoted human capital development and implemented HR policies and programmes to constantly improve performance, productivity and cost efficiencies of the workforce.
It was in 2010 that he joined Strides at Bengaluru, where he led talent acquisition and HR operations for Arcolab / Strides and its Group companies for India and global markets covering Europe, Asia and the US. He also managed shared service HR operations for the group globally for more than two years.
Known to be a versatile HR professional with an inherent ability to enable, energise and develop HR, Gupta will now be seen leading HR for IOL Chemicals and Pharmaceuticals’ chemical and pharma business, globally.
