Lal will focus on defining the culture at Ather as it scales up production.
Matrimony.com’s former CHRO, Sunitha Lal, has been appointed the head of human resources by Ather Energy, the hardware startup. Her immediate focus in her new role will be to define the culture at Ather, as they scale up production.
“It is rare to find an opportunity, where you can be part of culture building of not just an organisation, but a nascent industry as well. To weave a pervasive culture across everything we do, be it business processes to employee assimilation, is fantastic,” Lal says, talking of her position at Ather Energy. “The most enticing aspect is the chance to outline what Ather stands for and perpetuate that through our frameworks, values and our other programmes,” she adds.
Expressing his views on the appointment, Tarun Mehta, CEO of Ather Energy, says, “Lal comes with 20+ years of experience across all HR verticals. She is a strong coach and has a significant background in organisational & leadership development, performance & coaching systems & frameworks.”
He then adds how the organisation has grown, and in line with that, he adds, “It’s the perfect time for us to focus on our team, on development and on the systems that enable this. In 2007, Lal was appointed vice president and HR head at AIG Systems Solutions, which is an offshore development centre for AIG. There, she focused on organisation development and succession planning initiatives.
In 2009, as the SVP & global head of talent management, and business HR head at Mphasis, she improved upon the functional effectiveness and efficiency for HR business partner practices. She focused on aligning design and delivery of talent management programmes and practices, to drive business goals.
An alumnus of Madurai Kamaraj University, Lal took over as the chief human resources officer at Matrimony.com, in 2012. There, she was involved in organisation-wide decision making to shape business agenda on performance and growth. Lal played a key role in identifying, developing and implementing organisation effectiveness and change management initiatives.
Lal’s appointment at the company comes in as another addition to senior industry veteran hires that Ather has seen over the past few months, which include Venki Padmanabhan as COO and Thiruppathy Srinivasan as VP of vehicle development.
2 Comments
Congratulations.
Sunitha Lal, the name may be new to me but i congratulate her for new challenge.
It is natural that if we start with challenging job then the progress and opportunity remains open. Role model and sponsors prefer their presence.
My first venture in Govt. sector with HR qualification was a strategic mistake.It made me averser to external environment. But i admire progress of my hr fraternity.
thank you all.