The position was lying vacant since Yugantar Saikia’s sudden exit from the Company post allegations of fraudulent activities.¬¬
Ola’s search for a chief people officer has finally come to an end. It has roped in Susheel Balakrishnan to fill the position, which was lying vacant since Yugantar Saikia’s sudden exit from the Company following alleged fraudulent activities.
Balakrishnan, an alumnus of TISS Mumbai, was based out of Dubai and West Asia for the last 14 years. Having worked with Yum Restaurants MENAPak for 11 years, his last designation was that of chief people officer.
Balakrishnan’s LinkedIn profile says, he is a strong, commercially-oriented human resources professional skilled in transformation, business partnership, HR consulting, culture change, and executive coaching.
Post his stint at Yum Restaurants, Balakrishnan dabbled in several consulting assignments. Based out of Dubai, he was business development director at Food Labs. Simultaneously, he was executive board member of Future Legends Cricket Academy and managing partner of 720 Transform Consulting.
Balakrishnan also spent a large part of his career—12 years— with P&G. He started in 1991 and his last designation was that of HR associate director.
Bhavish Aggarwal, co-founder & CEO, Ola Cabs wrote to the employees, “Balakrishnan will head HR across the Ola group. He has successfully led organisation and culture-change efforts that have become global best practices, in roles that have impacted 3,000 to 30,000 employees.”