“Providing impeccable advice peppered with both commercial acumen and people focus remains my forte.”

Aparna Vishwasrao
(Chief Human Resources Officer (CHRO) at USV Private Limited)

India has the potential to emerge as a global superpower and is expected to become the third-largest economy in the world. While each industry contributes significantly to its tremendous growth, the Human Resources domain can be considered an invaluable asset for economic development from all angles. As the Indian economy continues to grow, the role of the HR industry will be multifold, eventually playing a pivotal role in shaping the future of work in India. As India gears up to become a top global player, Aparna Vishwasrao enters the field as a prominent figure contributing to the HR domain.

Aparna is a seasoned and highly skilled HR professional, having worked in different areas for more than 25 years. She has helped Fortune 500 companies & startups grow multifariously and handled different leadership roles in multiple areas like Strategic HR business partnerships, critical post-merger integration initiatives, Leadership Development, start-up HR and Diversity &Inclusion, to name a few.

She holds a Masters in Personnel Management & Industrial Relations from Tata Institute of Social Sciences and has also done an MA in English Literature. Outside of her professional endeavours, Aparna enjoys spending time writing, reading, and travelling. She is also a registered writer at an online media tech company that provides a platform for women to narrate their stories to the world.

“On one side, I sculpt success stories while on the other side, I excel in inorganic growth activities, post-merger integration, due diligence, business restructuring and more,” shares Aparna.

Aparna possesses rich experience in handling the challenges of starting up new HR processes and making sure everyone feels included at work. She’s not just good at her job; she’s helped set up organisations, worked in cross-border teams, coached & mentored leaders and in the process evolved as a leader herself.

Aparna’s passion to tap into human potential & bring out best in others is not limited to her corporate role. She has untiringly mentored and guided multiple students and young professionals from underprivileged backgrounds to find their forte and groomed them to take on and succeed in the world of work. She is also deeply invested in harnessing overall wellness at the physical, mental and spiritual levels and is a practitioner of multiple healing modalities.

Currently, she is serving as the Chief Human Resources Officer (CHRO) at USV Private Limited. It is a six-decade old young Indian healthcare company with pharmaceutical manufacturing & research and marketing capabilities for Pharma and consumer businesses.

Key Contributions In Different Industries

Before working as CHRO at USV Private Limited, she served as CHRO at Raymond Consumer Care Limited and was a part of the HR Committee, where her responsibilities were overseeing and governance for all HR matters of the Raymond Group. Aparna recently played a pivotal role in the post-merger integration between the two FMCG arms of Raymond Group, JK Helen Curtis and JK Ansel for the successful formation of Raymond Consumer Care Limited.

“I also played a significant role in the successful turnaround of the company, along with the CEO registering growth in double digits,” she shares. Her strategic efforts made the company recently win the prestigious ‘Dream Company to Work For’ Award at the ET Feather Touch Awards.

While she was working for MSD Pharmaceuticals (known as Merck & Co. in the USA and Canada), Aparna wore multiple hats and worked in local and regional roles in different countries. She has earlier worked in BPCL, Standard Chartered Bank, and Reliance Capital. In Reliance Mutual Fund, she set up Reliance Money from the beginning and also played a part in launching Reliance Life Insurance.

A Woman Who Brings Wealth of Expertise To The Table

With a strong focus on talent development and management, Aparna is a repository of valuable expertise. Her expertise areas include Talent development & management, Strategic HR business partnerships, Diversity and inclusion, Post-merger HR integration, Talent Acquisition, Compensation & benefits portfolio restructuring, Learning & Development, Coaching and Mentoring, HR compliance & Industrial Relations, M&A (due diligence) and more.

Aparna has received several awards and accolades for her selfless contributions to the HR industry. Some of the prominent ones include:

‘Iconic Women Award’ by the Women Economic Forum in 2020
‘Top 101 HR Minds in India’ Award in 2019 from the World HRD Congress
‘WILL Women’s Choice Award’ in 2018
‘Pride of Profession Award’ in 2017

Her exemplary work in promoting diversity and inclusion in the pharmaceutical industry has earned MSD India multiple prestigious awards. Under her leadership, Raymond Consumer Care won the ‘Diversity Ally Award’ at the Business World Diversity and Inclusion Summit 2022. Aparna is often invited to share her insights as a speaker and faculty member at conferences and management institutes. In 2018, she played a key role in co-leading the launch of a global mentoring program for women in India named THRIVE.

Aparna believes in the power of choice that shapes her life. Whatever choices she makes she takes ownership of them. She believes in this thought as articulated by Winston Churchill – “Success is not final; failure is not fatal: It is the courage to continue that count.”

Aparna is a keen learner and believes that we should improve the world every day and extend kindness to others through big or small acts. This thought of Paulo Coelho is her guiding mantra. “When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too.”