Jyothsna Hirode

Jyothsna is an accomplished Diversity and Inclusion Leader, with industry experience of over 25 years. She brings deep expertise in the design and delivery of Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) programs. She has worked in several organizations in the IT sector and has created winning strategies to engage, grow and retain talent. These are based on a deep understanding of the ever-changing business needs, garnered through 15 years of line experience before she moved into Human Resources and specialized in D&I.

In her tenure in the D&I function in IBM, she led the advancement of women and cross-cultural programs in India/South Asia. She has set strategy, influenced leadership teams to own objectives and sponsor programs. She has also set up governance systems via Diversity and Women’s Leadership Councils. During this period, IBM India/South Asia was recognized by NASSCOM through the prestigious Best IT Products and Services Company for D&I Award. Later, as a D&I leader in the Global Diversity Center of Competence, she led the global surveys and awards process, supported over 120 Employee Resource Groups across the globe, and partnered with Global Talent Directors to support several business units for their D&I solutions. More recently she has consulted with Capgemini, especially in the area of women leadership.

Prior to her foray into D&I, Jyothsna was an award-winning people manager and worked to train and enable other people managers of a large business unit. Even earlier, she was in the core business of IT application development and management services. She has worked in startups as well as in large organizations in India and abroad and enjoyed the challenges of the software development and implementation business.

Motivated to extend her work with women leadership to the disadvantaged, she now engages regularly with a non-profit to enable underprivileged women increase their employability and connects them to opportunities.

She has a post-graduate certificate in human resource management from XLRI, Jamshedpur, and a bachelor’s degree in Engineering in Electronics & Communication.