WORKFORCE PLANNING & TALENT ACQUISITION

Turning growth ambition into the right people, in the right roles, at the right time — and keeping them.

Retention Strategy & Employee Satisfaction (ESAT) Action Plan
Mobily | Feb 2026 – Present | India, Egypt & KSA

Context
As Mobily InfoTech scaled through its transformation, the Organisation directed HR to move beyond reactive attrition reporting and build a genuine, structured retention strategy — one grounded in what employees were actually experiencing, not assumptions about why people were leaving.

My Role & Approach
• Commissioned and led a structured employee-satisfaction (ESAT) analysis across the organisation to surface real drivers of engagement and disengagement, rather than relying on exit-interview data alone
• Built a Board-directed retention action plan addressing sourcing quality, onboarding experience, and early-tenure attrition — the points in the employee lifecycle where the organisation was most exposed
• Reworked recruitment and onboarding quality controls to reduce early attrition at the source, rather than only treating symptoms after hire
• Reported progress against the retention plan through the CEO/Board dashboard, closing the loop between insight and action

Outcome & Value Delivered
• Gave the organisation its first structured, data-backed view of why people were staying or leaving, rather than anecdote-driven guesses
• Shifted retention effort upstream — into sourcing and onboarding quality — rather than only reacting after resignations
• Built a repeatable model for connecting employee sentiment data directly to corrective action

People & Performance Governance Guidelines
Mobily | Feb 2026 – Present | India, Egypt & KSA

Context
As the organisation scaled its delivery workforce, it needed clear, consistently enforced standards for how utilisation, bench time, and remote/hybrid work were managed — without which, workforce planning numbers on paper quickly diverge from what is actually happening on the ground.

My Role & Approach
• Authored formal People & Performance Governance Guidelines covering Objectives & Key Result Areas accountability, work-from-home standards, and utilisation/bench governance for every manager, from Manager to VP level
• Built manager-facing accountability tools — clear weekly and monthly checklists — so utilisation and bench management became a lived discipline, not a policy document nobody reads
• Linked utilisation and Objectives & Key Result Areas performance directly into the annual performance management cycle, giving the guidelines real behavioural teeth
• Defined clear escalation pathways so bench and utilisation risks reached HR and leadership early enough to act on, rather than surfacing only at quarter-end

Outcome & Value Delivered
• Gave frontline managers a clear, practical operating standard for workforce utilisation — closing the gap between the workforce plan on paper and delivery reality
• Created a direct, auditable link between day-to-day workforce management and formal performance outcomes
• Strengthened the organisation's ability to redeploy underutilised talent proactively rather than reactively

Centre of Excellence Workforce Planning (Including ServiceNow CoE)
Mobily | Feb 2026 – Present | India, Egypt & KSA

Context
Mobily InfoTech's Systems Integrator ambition rests on building genuine, differentiated technical capability across seven Centres of Excellence — each needing its own workforce shape, leadership pipeline, and growth trajectory rather than a one-size-fits-all headcount plan.

My Role & Approach
• Built dedicated, multi-year workforce plans for all seven Centres of Excellence: QA & Test Automation, Digital Development & Engineering, Data/Analytics & AI, Elastic & Integration, Cloud & DevOps, ServiceNow, and Revenue Assurance & Fraud Management Systems
• Led a ground-up, multi-year workforce and capability build-out plan specifically for the ServiceNow CoE, including leadership structure, certification pathways, and staged headcount ramp
• Defined role-mix and seniority-ratio targets appropriate to each CoE's maturity stage, rather than applying a uniform structure across very different technical domains
• Aligned each CoE's workforce plan to its own certification and capability-building roadmap, ensuring headcount growth and skills growth moved together

Outcome & Value Delivered
• Gave the organisation a differentiated, domain-specific workforce plan for each Centre of Excellence rather than a generic technology-headcount forecast
• Built the leadership and certification pipeline underpinning the ServiceNow CoE's growth from a standing start
• Created a reusable planning template now extended across the organisation's other capability domains

Talent Acquisition & Workforce Scaling — GSSC India & Malaysia
Bureau Veritas | India & Malaysia
Context
Build high-performing Global Shared Services Centres from scratch in India and Malaysia, compete for scarce talent in tight IT and finance markets, and sustain retention while enabling internal workforce growth.

My Role & Approach
• Implemented an AI-driven Applicant Tracking System and modern, division-specific recruitment strategies for software and finance hiring
• Trained the Talent Acquisition team on AI tools, ATS processes, and strategic hiring practices
• Built a trainable internal workforce model, enabling cross-division talent mobility and clear career growth paths
• Built a strong employer brand to selectively attract high-potential talent from leading IT firms and Fortune 5 companies

Outcome & Value Delivered
• Scaled the India Software division to about 1000 resources
• Scaled India Finance from a new function and Malaysia GSSC from 11 → 220
• Maintained attrition below 11% across divisions throughout the scale-up
• Operated with full autonomy and strategic trust from the Group CIO to innovate and deliver

Corporate-to-Campus Talent Strategy
Bureau Veritas | India, later replicated in Malaysia & France
Context
Rising pyramid cost in the Software and Financial GSSC operations threatened the long-term cost sustainability and future talent supply of the shared services model.

My Role & Approach
• Designed the Corporate-to-Campus Program, hiring trainees from remote regions of India who lacked access to mainstream corporate hiring pipelines
• Built a dual-skilling curriculum covering both current core technologies and emerging technologies aligned to upcoming projects
• Aligned the training curriculum quarterly with the CFO, Group CIO, business heads, and technology/finance leaders against business priorities and roadmaps

Outcome & Value Delivered
• Built a trained, deployable, cost-efficient workforce pipeline that reduced talent acquisition and pyramid costs
• Increased engagement by giving young talent structured learning and career pathways
• Successfully replicated the model in Malaysia and France, adapted to local talent markets

Interwoven Technology Capability Build & Amazon Project Expansion
Assign | 2007

Context
A major opportunity required delivery capability in Interwoven — a rare, specialised technology with effectively zero available talent in the Indian market at the time.

My Role & Approach
• Identified, in partnership with the CTO, that Interwoven's core foundation was built on Java — creating a path to build capability from within
• Proposed and led a plan to convert the existing Java bench into Interwoven-ready professionals rather than relying on impossible external hiring
• Partnered with a Singapore-based specialist training organisation and ran a fast-track 1-month program (2 weeks online, 2 weeks in-person with a trainer flown to India)

Outcome & Value Delivered
• Won the Amazon Interwoven project, scaling from 3 FTEs to 15 FTEs within 6 months, and 20 FTEs within the first year
• Built one of India's earliest Interwoven-skilled delivery teams, reducing dependency on external hiring
• Expanded the client relationship into additional WebLogic and AquaLogic engagements; recognised for the intervention