Pavitra Singh, chief human resources officer and vice president, PepsiCo India & South Asia, has joined the board of Burma Burma Restaurant & Tea Room, bringing more than two decades of people leadership experience to the growing restaurant business.
Operated by Hunger Pangs, Burma Burma currently has 13 restaurants and delivery kitchens across India. Founded by Chirag Chhajer and Ankit Gupta, the specialty restaurant and tea-room concept is built around Burmese cuisine, drawing on street food, regional recipes and Gupta’s Burmese family roots.
The company has not disclosed the date of Singh’s appointment or specific responsibilities associated with her board role.
Singh has spent more than 20 years with PepsiCo across two stints and has been CHRO and vice president for India and South Asia since October 2019. Her current role spans organisational transformation, leadership and succession, talent, frontline workforce strategy, industrial relations and employee engagement.
Her experience with frontline workforces could be particularly relevant to a consumer business such as Burma Burma. In addition to her India and South Asia responsibilities, Singh has led PepsiCo’s frontline centre of excellence across Asia, the Middle East and South Africa, covering more than 40,000 frontline employees across India, South Africa, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.
She has also been involved in the people strategy for two greenfield facilities built around a women-first hiring approach. During her tenure as CHRO, PepsiCo India has increased women’s representation across the organisation, including in manufacturing and sales roles traditionally dominated by men.
Singh also leads RevolutioNari, a PepsiCo India programme aimed at reaching one million households through skilling, awareness and employment opportunities. According to her LinkedIn profile, the initiative has so far reached more than 500,000 women and households.
Her association with PepsiCo began in 2006 as senior manager, talent acquisition. She subsequently moved through leadership roles in learning and development, sales HR, diversity and inclusion, talent management and talent acquisition. Her later assignments included responsibility for PepsiCo’s global campus strategy and talent acquisition across Asia, the Middle East and North Africa before she took over the India and South Asia people function in 2019.
Between her earlier and current PepsiCo stints, Singh worked with Fair Isaac in Bengaluru, where she was HR business partner for a young operation that grew from about 20 to more than 100 employees. Earlier, she spent over two years with American Express, supporting two business units and helping ramp up a new operation.
For Burma Burma, Singh’s board appointment brings experience not merely in HR, but in managing the organisational questions that accompany growth: building leadership pipelines, scaling frontline workforces and developing talent as a consumer business expands.
