About Harjeet
The HR leader who explains business with stories and sketches
Harjeet Khanduja is Senior Vice President, Human Resources at Reliance Jio, an author of ten books, a TEDx speaker, an inventor with four patents and a Professor of Practice. For three decades he has worked on one question. How do we make work better for the people who do it?
- HR Leader
- Author
- Speaker
- Inventor
- Professor of Practice
- Hindi Poet
Then and now
Same stage nerves. Bigger rooms.
He first faced an audience as a student poet at IIT Roorkee. Today he speaks to leaders at conferences across India and abroad.
Career
Thirty years of building HR where growth was fastest
Each chapter began with a company about to grow very quickly, and an HR function that had to keep up.
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Tata Motors8 years
Began his career here and led the first Kaizen implementation, which earned recognition from Mr Ratan Tata.
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Nicholas PiramalHR digitisation
Led the digital transformation of HR, long before HR technology became a boardroom topic.
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Reliance RetailCore team
Part of the core team that grew the business from 500 to 28,000 people.
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ConJoin Group (Anthelio)2009 · now Atos
Helped scale the organisation from $6 million to $250 million, and won the NASSCOM Diversity Award three years in a row.
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Reliance JioSince 2012
Built the leadership team and laid the foundation of the HR function. Has since built more than 30 HR products across hiring, onboarding, learning and employee experience, including AI powered recommendations, assessments and fraud detection.
Learning and inventing
An engineer who never stopped being a student
Teaching and speaking
From TEDx stages to classrooms of senior HR leaders
Speaking
Several TEDx talks, and keynotes at national and international HR conferences, IIMs and IITs.
- HR Tech World Congress
- HR Dynamics Asia Summit, Singapore
- JITO Sri Lanka
- Featured among the top 10 speakers of India by SpeakIn
Teaching
Professor of Practice who runs masterclasses for top management and programmes for senior HR professionals.
- Recruitment programme at XLRI
- Guest faculty at IIM Ahmedabad
- Executive learning for CHROs, including AI for HR
Courses
Practical courses built with learning partners, for people who want to apply ideas the same week.
- HR Analytics with Keka
- AI for HR, live with Sights In Plus
- Six Sigma
Recognition
Awards, honours and the company he keeps
Awards
- NASSCOM Diversity Award, three years in a row
- HR Leadership Award
- HR Personality of the Year
- Pride of Nation Award
- Global Digital Ambassador
- Global Learning Award
- Top 200 Global Leadership Voices
- LinkedIn Power Profile
Featured by SpeakIn among the top 10 speakers of India.
Boards and associations
- Co-chair, NASSCOM Diversity Committee
- Board Member, Federation of World Academics
- Member, CII HR and IR Committee, Western Region
- Member, Telecom Sector Skill Council
- Member, Quality Assurance and Framework Committee (SAARC Rankings), ICIR
- Advisory Board Member, Blogger Alliance
- Supporter of Council of Technical Scholars and Anuthi, which educates people with disabilities
Writing
Ten books and a habit of making HR simple
His LinkedIn stories have been read more than 10 million times. The best of them became books.
How Leaders Decide
Leaders, Decisions and Biases
Nothing About Business
The Storytelling Leader
How Leaders Influence
He writes the column The H with HR for Human Capital and Alag Hai for People First HR Magazine. He has contributed to People Matters, Business Manager, SightsinPlus, Education Post, Human Factor, IT Next and People and Management.
His journey is featured in Heroes Amongst Us by Dr Amit Nagpal, a book of real stories about ordinary people who achieved extraordinary success.
The other side
Meet Sardar Tuktukहास्य सम्राट, the king of comedy
Long before the boardrooms, Harjeet was a Hindi hasya poet. He made his television debut on Doordarshan in 1997 as Sardar Tuktuk, and the name stayed.
- 1997Won the poetry reality show हंसगोला, hosted by Arun Gemini
- 1998Performed on Wah Wah on SAB TV
- 2001Given the title Hasya Samrat
- 2012One of the most popular poets on Wah Wah, Kya Baat Hai!
- 2016Toured the United States and felicitated by the World Hindi Foundation
- 2020Honoured with the Vishwa Hindi Jyoti Bhushan Samman
His poems appear in हंगामा एक्सप्रेस and other collections, on the poetry website Anubhuti, and in his own book Tuktuk Ki Rail.
