This panel discussion was part of the Homemaker story project, initiated by Tell Me Your Story. I was Project Lead and moderator.
Kena Shree is an author, poet and storyteller. She also works as Deputy General Manager (Human Resources) in NTPC Limited, the Govt. of India. She has written for the Huffington Post, the Hindustan Times, Cox and Kings India, Women's Web, Sheroes and other writing forums, and also writes a column for the Lifestyle section in Times of India web edition. After having won the Times of India 'Write India Season-1' and 'Season 3' short story campaigns, her stories got published in the anthology by TOI books.
She is a co-contributor in the books 'Twilight's Children', 'A Jar Full of Memories' and '20 Authors, 20 Stories'. As a storyteller, her videos on YouTube have cumulatively crossed 7 million views. Kena is a Corporate trainer and is known best for Corporate Storytelling sessions in various organisations as well as academic institutes including IIM Lucknow and IIM Shillong. In last three years, she has been featured in "100 influencers to follow on Twitter", Outstanding Corporate Director by FICCI-FLO, Jombay's Top 100 HR under 40, "100 most inspiring women at workplace", HT Woman 2017 Nominee in Writer's category. Her biography has also been featured in the book "Folktales - Inspiring Souls of Awadh". Last month, she was awarded the prestigious 'People Excellence Award 2021' by National HRD Network (NHRD).
Nandita Gurjar is a technologist turned HR professional. Nandita’s experience in mainstream IT spans software development, general management, and consulting. Nandita started her career at Wipro InfoTech in 1992 as a software programmer and handled multiple technical responsibilities, in various functions like software coding and testing, program documentation and Quality. She joined Infosys Limited, in December, 1999 to setup the Leadership Institute.
In October, 2003, Nandita moved to Infosys BPO to Head the HR function. In December 2007, Nandita took over as Global Head HR for Infosys. In this role she handled the entire HR management function for the Infosys Group which had over 150,000 employees. In April 2014, Nandita got selected for the Advanced Management program at Harvard Business school and, after her return, left Infosys in 2014. Nandita was the member of World Economic Forum - Global Advisory Council on New Models of Leadership. She has won several awards during her career and was also cited as "25 Most Powerful professional Women in India”. She is currently on the Boards of companies of listed and unlisted companies and is Advisor to many other companies. Nandita has a Master's degree in Psychology (MA) from Osmania University. She is also an alumnus from the Harvard Business school.
Sunitha Lal is the CHRO at Ather Energy. She is passionate about exploring and curating organizational culture. Hierarchies and conditioned prejudices are older than the greys feared by most organizations today. Sunitha calls experience, the luxury of grey hair, and she swims in the overlapping spaces of words, mindfulness, yoga, tying the great unknown to the human experience. She is a strong proponent of the oral tradition of storytelling and is the author of Dotting the Blemish and Other Stories. This is a collection of short stories about women that reflect and comment on the inherent prejudices we have as a society.
Panel discussion date: 17 September 2021
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