Guiding Lights

Anil Sachdev

Founder & CEO of the School Of Inspired Leadership – SOIL.

Anil’s experience in India and across the world covers areas such as talent management, strategic change and organizational transformation. Recognised as a thought leader in Leadership Development and Organizational Transformation, Anil has done pioneering work with leading global and local firms.

Dr. Santrupt Misra

Dr. Santrupt Misra is the Former CEO, Carbon Black Business and Director, Group Human Resources of the Aditya Birla Group.

He is a Former Director on the Aditya Birla Management Corporation Private Limited Board, the apex decision making body of the USD 45 billion, Aditya Birla Group.

Santrupt is a Former Director on the Board of the Aditya Birla Science & Technology Company Ltd., Alexandria Carbon Black Co. SAE., Thai Carbon Black Public Co., Ltd., and The Alexandria Fiber Co., SAE., which are part of the Aditya Birla Group.

With two postgraduate degrees, two doctorates and close to three decades of experience in education, training, consulting, HR and business leadership, Dr. Misra is a shining role model in the field of Business and Human Resources.

R.R. Nair

R.R. Nair has over 3 decades of corporate experience with Unilever. He has served on the Boards of Unilever subsidiary companies in India and abroad. He has more than a decade’s experience as a professional executive coach serving mostly Fortune listed companies. He also serves as master coach and leadership development facilitator for leading Indian conglomerates of great repute. He is a frequent speaker in professional forums.

Nair serves as an Independent Director for a few companies including BASF India. He is on the Advisory Board of Schneider-electric. He is a master coach for programmes on leadership skills for top management at the Indian School of Business.

Nair has Graduate & Post Graduate Degrees and Diplomas in applied Psychology, Industrial Management and Individual & Group Development. He is an Alumnus of IIT Kharagpur, India and Stanford & Michigan Universities in their advance management programmes.

Aroon Joshi

Founding Member, Indian Society for Applied Behavioral Sciences & Executive Coach.

Aroon Joshi is deeply committed to personal growth and leadership development, and has championed this at the individual and organization level. He is a founding member of the Indian Society for Applied Behavioral Sciences, and has very rich corporate tenure of close to 50 years with Organisations like Metal Box, Cadburys and RPG. He is an accredited coach to many senior executives across diverse industries including Engineering, IT, Plantations and Petroleum.

Bhaskar Bhat

Bhaskar Bhat is a shining example of a leader who combines exemplary business and entrepreneurial capabilities with a strong concern for people and their development.

Before joining the board of Tata Sons, Mr Bhat was the Managing Director of Titan Industries. Having joined Titan Industries with the Tata Watch Project in 1983, he helped Titan became the ‘Changing face of time’ through the establishment of the largest retail chain in its category “The World of Titan”, Tanishq boutiques, Gold Plus stores and Eye Plus stores.

Bhaskar Bhat is also a member of the Governing Council at the T.A.Pai Management Institute, Manipal and the National Institute of Design.

He is a B.Tech in Mechanical Engineering from IIT Madras and has completed his Post Graduate Diploma in Management in IIM Ahmedabad.

He received the Distinguished Alumnus Award from IIT Madras in the year 2008.

Dr. B. J. Prashantham

Dr. B. J. Prashantham is a world-renowned psychologist/professor with over 50 years of experience as a trainer and supervisor of Counsellors and Executive Coaches. Having been educated from undergraduate to post-doctoral levels in Counselling at Hyderabad, Chicago, Texas Medical Centre, Houston, and Ohio State University, he is committed to training rigour and competency enhancement and has trained over 100 CEOs in Executive Coaching Skills.

He is a Professor of Counselling Psychology & Director at Institute of Human Relations, Counselling and Psychotherapy, Christian Counselling Centre, Vellore.

He is also President, Association for Psychological Counselling (APC) and was clinical Faculty at University of Washington’s Global Health Department on mental health, disaster mental health and cross-cultural communication.

He is the author of a Best-seller book ‘Indian Case Studies in Therapeutic Counselling and many Journal articles.

Dr Prashantham played a pioneering role in helping establish the curriculum for CFI’s post graduate program in executive coaching and served as senior facilitator for several batches and also served as a role model and source of inspiration for several CFI Coaches.

Dr. Zahid. H. Gangjee

A major part of Zahid Gangjee’s almost 16-year career was with ITC (an associate of BAT Plc., UK) at Calcutta; the last 5 years as Chief of the Manpower Development Group (reporting to the Chairman). This was a profit centre providing HR, OD & Training Consultancy to the divisions and companies of ITC and also externally. He started his own Organization and HR Consultancy in August 1995. His clients include leading multi-national and family-owned corporations in India. He has consulted and conducted / taught at developmental programs for the Private & Public Sectors, Govt., NGO’s etc., in India and abroad.

He has headed the HRD Committee of the Indian Chamber of Commerce, Calcutta and is a member of the Advisory Panel of the monthly publication “Human Capital”. He has a Masters in Psychology and M.Sc (Applied Psy), Fellow, IIM Ahmedabad.

Nirmala Menon

Nirmala Menon is a HR professional with over thirty years of experience in varied roles across diverse organisations both in India and the United States. As Founder & CEO at Interweave, her contributions in the field of Diversity and Inclusion has been recognised with her being listed among the “Top 50 Diversity Professionals” in the Global Diversity List.

Prior to Interweave, she was the Diversity and Employee Relations leader for IBM, India where she gained wide and specific experience in the area of diversity management. Her stint as part of IBM’s global diversity team provided her international experience embedding IBM’s diversity philosophy and practices across countries in APAC, Ireland, Canada, Mexico and the United States.

Rosemary Viswanath

Rosemary Viswanath B.Sc. (Hons) Mathematics (St Stephens College Delhi University), P.G.D.M. (Indian Institute of Management, Bengaluru 1982-84).

Rosemary (called Rose, by most colleagues and friends) began her career in the software industry in the Human Resources function working with CMC Limited and then Sonata Software. She also was actively involved with the Indian Society for Applied Behavioural Science (ISABS) and was a Professional Member of the Society.

A strong pull towards working on larger scale societal process and on issues of social justice and discrimination led her to move out of a full time corporate role in the late 80’s and from then on work largely with the development (non-profit) sector in India and internationally. She has been engaged in consulting with large networks, movements and federations and both big and small organisations that work on social justice, human rights, environmental sustainability, and accountable governance. Her consulting work has also involved government departments, aid agencies and corporate organisations where the focus has been on leadership development and strategic approaches.

From 2005-2012 she was the full-time director of a research and advocacy organisation EQUATIONS that addressed the question of “Who really benefits from Tourism’.

She is in strategic advisory bodies and on Boards of several non- profit organisations.

The focus on groups, particularly unconscious dynamics of groups and systems and its links to how leadership is exercised in systems, has been an area of enduring interest and passion. Rose’s engagement in group relations has been from the late 80’s and it is the group relations framework that has most informed the roles she has taken up and her approach to work. She has been involved as staff and Director of Group Relations Conferences for several decades in India and in the UK, France, The Netherlands, Australia, Israel and the USA.

In order to ensure a home for Group Relations in India, she set up Group Relations India in 2013. As the Managing Trustee and as one of the members of its programmes committee she actively shapes GRI’s development.

Her commitment to the study of Buddhist philosophy and practise, influences her approaches to transforming one’s mind towards more compassionate and ethical ways of living which are in tune with how things exist. Another area of passion is caring for street animals – and in particular her large family of rescued dogs and cats. Her immediate human family in Bangalore– husband Vish, daughter Tanuja, son-in-law PG, has expanded with their grandson Rumi !