DIAN India Meeting 1 - Building an Inclusive Workforce in the New World of Work

Shantha Maheswari is the Chief Strategy and Planning Officer for Carelon Global Solutions in India. Responsible for driving, implementing, and communicating the overall strategy, delivering sustainable value and advancing the mission of the organization. Comes with more than two decades of experience guiding and empowering teams to impact large-scale business transformations.

Expertise: Inclusion & Diversity, Growth and Strategy, line of business leadership, pre-sales, strategic deal executive, client account management, delivery leadership in Retail Consumer Goods, Transportation, Health Care and Life Sciences industries.

Previous experience:
• Accenture India
• Capgemini
• Wipro Technologies

Credentials:
• Leadership coaching and C-suite Cloud Advisor certifications from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and Carnegie Mellon University
• Recipient of multiple industry and high-performance awards and an active speaker in industry forums
• Industry Start Up Mentor Entropik, SSK Emart, qSense Labs, Incture
• Board member, IIBA non-profit organization

Chitra is an accomplished HR professional with more than 20 years of experience with expertise in Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI). She has managed global initiatives and programmes in the areas of gender, culture, disability, age, multigeneration and work life balance.

She has held senior responsibilities as a D&I champion, driving the agenda through talent attraction, retention and development practices. She has worked with organizations like HCL Technologies, Accenture and Datamatics in the past. She holds a PhD in D&I. She is a member of NASSCOM Tamil Nadu Regional Council and CII National Committee on Special Abilities & India Business & Disability Network (IBDN). She spends her free time volunteering for Inner Wheel club that servers the local community.

Vieshaka L Dutta is a senior HR professional and leads Diversity Equity and Inclusion for Publicis Sapient, India and APAC. She has been associated with strategic HR efforts, culture and diversity & Inclusion for over 15 years. She is passionate about building community support groups and manages large networks focused on support for women and mothers and single parents. She also mentors organisations and institutions on their DEI journey and manages networks of professionals. She is a strong ally for LGBTQIA+ support movement in India and supports advocacy for the community at workplaces.

Sushmita Jain is the global Disability Inclusion Lead at Wipro. In this role, Sushmita is leading the global disability inclusion charter.

Sushmita comes with close to 10 years of diverse experience across technology, inclusion and diversity, and social development. She has experience in disability inclusion and livelihoods, inclusive organizational policies, mental health and wellness, and gender inclusion. She is particularly adept at the end-to-end implementation of strategic initiatives focused on diversity, equality, and inclusion (DEI). From driving the global disability inclusion charter with stakeholders and engaging with various employee resource groups to being a strategic advisor, Sushmita will continue to follow her passion for building diverse and inclusive workplaces and helping Wipro grow in these critical areas. An engineer by qualification, Sushmita hails from Mangalore and currently lives in Bengaluru with her husband and three-year-old son. She founded SupportVitiligo, a volunteer-driven awareness platform and support network targeted at those who have Vitiligo, a visible skin condition. Sushmita has volunteered across India, speaking on Vitiligo and raising awareness at colleges, organizations and institutions.

Alex is a Technology Director with the Infrastructure Technology Service Operations group. Alex has 20+ years of overall experience in the IT Industry leading global teams in Site Reliability Engineering, Technology Operations & Implementation Engineering functions in multiple verticals.

Alex is passionate and deeply involved in Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DE&I) initiatives. He leads the Neurodiversity Initiative for Wells Fargo India & Philippines and has previously been the chair for the Disability Connect Initiative for Wells Fargo India & Philippines. Alex is also a part of the DE&I Council for the firm focused on Diverse Representation supporting opportunities to increase applicants from under represented dimensions across all levels.

Lakshmi is a Director with Pershing India Operational Services Private Limited at BNY Mellon | Pershing, based in Chennai, India.

Lakshmi started her stint with the current organization in 2018 by leading the Financial Services Quality team which supports both US & UK Finance operations. Her role got expanded into core operations after the first couple of years, which includes most of the back-office functions for Pershing BNY Mellon. The team under her mentorship had grown incrementally with many value-added support being delivered from India and is also working towards strategic priorities from operational perspective for the upcoming years. She is also the executive sponsor for HEART Employee / Business Resource Group within the organization (HEART serves to elevate the awareness of disabilities and promotes a safe, respectful and welcoming work environment where all employees feel included, valued, and supported to bring their best at workplace).

Prior to joining BNY Mellon, Lakshmi had worked as a Business Consultant for ERP implementations in Finance Areas. Her major stint was with Accenture Consulting where she had worked with global teams from different geographies on various Finance Process Transformation and Process Outsourcing Set up engagements.

Lakshmi had completed her Professional Certification with the Institute of Charted Accountants of India.

Personally she is married and has one son who is working as a data analyst in Europe.