SS
PRACTITIONER-LED PEOPLE ADVISORY

Building people-firstorganizations thatactually perform.

Nearly three decades of consulting and practitioner experience — delivering pragmatic, financially smart, business-relevant people solutions across the full employee lifecycle.

Start a conversationExplore the practice
27+years building people functions across consulting, banking, healthcare & tech.
Shubhayu Sengupta, Chief People Officer · Talent Advisor
0+

Years in Human Resources

0+

People led at scale

0

Countries operated across

0

Integrated practice areas

A career built inside category-defining organizations

ZetaWells FargoEYPwCSwiss ReSagilityHinduja Global SolutionsXLRI JamshedpurZetaWells FargoEYPwCSwiss ReSagilityHinduja Global SolutionsXLRI Jamshedpur
The through-line

I don’t advise from the sidelines. I’ve built the thing.

— Shubhayu Sengupta

More than 27 years of deep Human Resources experience across both line HR and consulting in global corporations — spanning multiple geographies and domains. Big 4 professional services, global financial institutions out of the US and Europe, healthcare BPM, and most recently the People function of a founder-driven banking-technology company transforming payments and credit globally.

I have helped build entire organizations — translating enterprise vision and values into local context, inculcating culture, building the employer brand, designing the right HR policies and processes, establishing the right HR team, and formulating and running the whole employee capability strategy, in highly matrixed organizations with many stakeholders.

My depth runs across competency design and talent management, compensation and benefits, performance management, right-sizing people practices, and the tenets of culture that become the engagement glue of an organization — offering a distinctive employee value proposition in a high-performing, innovative environment.

Six areas of engagement

An integrated framework across the full people agenda.

One practitioner-led partner spanning organization design, rewards, analytics, culture and leadership — each area is a complete practice in its own right, and stronger when they work together.

01
01

Strategic People & Org Transformation Advisory

Organizations struggle to find the right org design for their business maturity or life-cycle stage — needing role and job re-design, pyramid optimization, and people & platform functions redesigned accordingly.

Potential engagements

  • Org design during scale or restructuring
  • Leadership team effectiveness
  • Workforce cost optimization — pyramid shaping, span-of-control redesign, talent supply-chain model
  • HR transformation (COE – HRBP – Shared Services model)
  • AI-led HR operating models
  • Competency-based talent mapping and succession planning

Who it's for

  • Tech / SaaS
  • Mid-sized GCCs
  • New-age consumer brands
  • Fintech
  • Founder-led businesses professionalising people practices
02
02

Total Rewards

A relevant, intentional Employee Value Proposition matters for every stakeholder — employees, candidates, vendors, clients. A transparent, fair, uniform approach to Total Rewards is key to talent density and segmentation.

Potential engagements

  • Designing and rolling out a compelling EVP
  • Compensation structures aligned to statutory requirements — incl. Code on Wages
  • Designing an overall Total Rewards philosophy
  • Pay ranges aligned to career levels
  • Performance-linked reward frameworks — salary increase and variable payout grids aligned to budgets and comparator market

Who it's for

  • SMEs professionalising reward practices
  • Series C+ startups
  • PE portfolio companies
  • Mid-sized and new GCCs
03
03

Talent Financials & Analytics

Running efficient people functions in line with business revenue is an organization-wide challenge. Creating data insights across the employee lifecycle, and evaluating People-function effectiveness, remains unsolved.

Potential engagements

  • Designing optimal people budgets based on the business revenue model, with fixed vs. variable cost modelling
  • HR analytics maturity assessment and redesign

Who it's for

  • Mid-sized IT companies
  • Manufacturing companies optimizing operating costs
  • Mid-sized and new GCCs
04
04

Culture & Values

A lack of clearly defined ‘core culture’ — with articulated behaviours and ways of working — creates organizational stress and anxiety in a time of relentless change.

Potential engagements

  • Designing the values and culture map of an organization — following the “Right” model
  • Assessing and aligning people practices to culture archetypes
  • Building a compelling EVP for new and existing employees

Who it's for

  • Mid-sized IT companies
  • Founder-led businesses and SMEs
  • Series C+ startups
  • Any org pivoting its identity, business model, or ways of working
05
05

Fractional CHRO

Some start-ups and SMEs need a fractional CHRO to set up their people function — structure, teams, practices and processes — without a full-time hire.

Potential engagements

  • Acting CHRO to set up the entire function, processes and systems — then hiring and transitioning to a permanent HR leader
  • Continuing as fractional CHRO on a retainer basis

Who it's for

  • New GCCs
  • SMEs
  • Founder-led businesses
06
06

Building HR Capability

With rapid demands for business alignment and AI adoption, mid-level HR professionals need to build functional capability depth at pace.

Potential engagements

  • Talent and performance management
  • Compensation and benefit design
  • Creation of the Employee Value Proposition
  • Organization design and talent supply-chain model
  • People data reporting and analytics

How it's delivered

Delivered via structured learning interventions, workshops and applied capability-building programs for mid-level HR professionals across organizations.

Track record

Nearly three decades of building people functions at scale.

Zeta

Sep 2024 – July 2026

Chief People Officer

India

  • Led Talent Acquisition, People Success, Real Estate & Workplace, and Procurement / Workplace IT for a founder-driven banking-technology company transforming payments and credit globally.

Gloplax Solutions

Jun 2023 – Aug 2024

CHRO

Bengaluru, India

  • Owned HR strategy end-to-end — succession planning, talent management, change management, total rewards, and organizational & performance management — extending to policy strategy for Gloplax and its clients.

Sagility (formerly HGS Healthcare)

Jan 2022 – May 2023

SVP & HR Head — India & Philippines, Global OD Leader

  • Led HR for a US$450M global healthcare business — 13,000+ employees across India and the Philippines.
  • Carved out new legal entities from the Hinduja Group and transitioned 14,000+ employees with a smooth handover of business and people.
  • Built the 5-year talent strategy and co-created the new brand, values and ways of working of a tech-enabled healthcare leader; drove ESG, D&I and CSR.

EY GBS

Aug 2014 – Jun 2016

Director — Talent Leader, GDN

India, Philippines, Poland, Argentina, China

  • Owned the Talent / HR function across five countries for EY’s global back-office.
  • Designed and implemented the talent strategy for accelerated growth; set up operations in Poland and the Philippines.
  • Created a global leadership pipeline program as part of the talent ‘Build’ strategy.

Wells Fargo

Nov 2007 – Aug 2014

Sr. VP HR — Head HR, India & Philippines

  • Built and led HR for 5,000+ people across India and the Philippines — all facets from acquisition to total rewards and service delivery.
  • Served on the India Operating Committee; orchestrated transformative HR initiatives and a strong employer brand.
  • Helped the offshore centre be recognised by Aon Hewitt as a Best Employer.

Swiss Re Shared Services India

Nov 2001 – Sep 2007

GM Corporate & Head HR

  • Part of the founding leadership team that established the global reinsurer’s capability centre in India.
  • Led Finance and HR, growing the centre from 20 to 350+ employees across reinsurance accounting and actuarial support.

PwC

Jun 1998 – Oct 2001

Principal Consultant — Organization Change & Strategy

  • Consulted across industries on organization restructuring & design, performance management, compensation & benefits, and OD & learning.

XLRI Jamshedpur

PMIR · 1996–1998

Jadavpur University

B.E., Electrical Engineering · 1988–1992

How I work

Three ways to bring me in.

Every engagement is scoped to your stage and ambition — whether you need a thinking partner, a defined outcome, or hands-on leadership to stand the function up.

01

Strategic retainer

Advisory

An ongoing advisory relationship — a trusted thinking partner to the CEO, board or people team on the big people bets: org design, rewards philosophy, culture, and talent strategy.

02

Defined outcomes

Project

A scoped engagement with a clear deliverable — from an EVP and total-rewards framework to an HR-transformation blueprint or people-analytics redesign, delivered to a timeline.

03

Embedded leadership

Fractional CHRO

Acting CHRO to stand up the entire people function — structure, teams, systems and processes — then hire and transition to a permanent leader, or continue on a retainer basis.

Who I work with

Built for organizations serious about their people.

The practice spans industries and stages — from founder-led SMEs professionalising their people practices to PE portfolio companies, high-growth startups, and global capability centres.

—Fintech—Tech / SaaS—New-age consumer brands—PE portfolio companies—Series C+ startups—Mid-sized IT—Manufacturing—Founder-led SMEs—Global Capability Centres
Let’s talk

Let’s build the integrated people solution, together.

From org design to rewards, analytics, culture and fractional leadership — one practitioner-led partner across the full people agenda. Tell me what you’re building.

Emailshubhayus@gmail.comLinkedInConnect professionally
Based inBengaluru, India · Working globally