Piramal Group beefs up its senior HR team

Vikram Duggal joins as the VP and head HR for pharma solutions, while Unmesh Rai is the new head-employer branding and talent acquisition.

Pharma major Piramal Group is all set for an HR overhaul. The company now has a new CHRO in Vikram Bector, who joined a few months ago.

Following this, the company has made two new senior level appointments in HR department. Vikram Duggal has joined as the VP and head-HR for pharma solutions, and Unmesh Rai is the new head employer branding and talent acquisition.

Duggal and Rai will both work with Vikram Bector, who joined the company as the Group CHRO this July. Bector, who is driving the HR Transformation 2.0 at the Piramal Group, has vast experience in building world-class HR practices. He is well known for his expertise in leading HR transformations on a large scale; as well as for being a thought leader and a leadership coach.

Even as the Piramal Group accelerates its HR transformation through the ‘Strategy for Employee Engagement and Development Support’ (SEEDS) programme, the group is strengthening the HR team in a phased manner and has roped in Duggal from Sun Pharma and Rai from Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) for their HR team.

Duggal, who will shoulder responsibility of PPS global hr business partner lead where he will extend leadership to corporate as well as global sites, brings with him a rich experience of over 20 years in the field of designing and implementing organisation transformation interventions, talent sourcing, talent management and employee relations in pharma manufacturing and financial services. He played a variety of roles at Sun Pharma including head-HR for the emerging markets business spanning over 40+ countries. He has previously worked with Ranbaxy, PineBridge Investments (erstwhile AIG Investments), ICICI Prudential Life Insurance and Hindustan Unilever Limited. He has a master’s degree in HR from XLRI, Jamshedpur and a bachelor’s degree in science with a specialisation in statistics.

Rai will head employer branding and talent acquisition for the Group, and will be responsible for carving out a new talent acquisition centre of excellence (COE). This new COE would help meet the growth aspirations of the diversified businesses and build on the employer brand for a group with a rich legacy of over three decades. Rai joins from RIL, where he was involved in HR transformation, talent acquisition and branding. He has also worked with the Tata Group, where he headed talent acquisition and employer branding for Tata Motors.

The Piramal Group has been in the news for a variety of reasons— from acquiring five injectable anaesthesia and pain management products from Janssen Pharmaceutica for a deal valued at $175 million, and for pressing the accelerator in the OTC space. With such expansion at both its business and people fronts, the Group is leaving no stone unturned in staying at the forefront in the industry.