#05: Sonali Roychowdhury, VP HR, Supply Chain & Labour Relations at P&G

About  Sonali Roychowdhury:

Sonali is the Vice-President Human Resources for Asia Pacific, India, Middle-East & Africa Supply Chain, Labour Relations and Singapore Headquarters at Procter & Gamble. She has holistic leadership experience of 23 years across P&G, leading multicultural organisations in Country/Region HR leadership, handling mergers /acquisitions, Business Partnership, Change Management, Talent Development, Equality & Inclusion.

She has lived and worked in India, Vietnam, Singapore, building a legacy of talent internally, as well as the external community via mentoring. Arising out of her first-hand experience as a female leader pursuing an international career, Sonali is committed to driving positive change and inclusion in the organization and community.

Listen to the full discussion here:

  • Stream by clicking here.
  • Download as an MP3 here.

Connect with the Guest:

Sonali Roychowdhury: LinkedIn

Some of the highlights from the podcast:

  • Driving inclusion in different countries
  • How P&G takes care of the mental health of its employees
  • Talent attraction,  acquisition, and development management
  • Essentials skills to move to senior level leadership roles
  • Building resilience at large and during a crisis
  • Key factors which allowed Sonali to have such a thriving international career

Show notes:

  • [1:44] Can you share with us how you drive inclusion in the countries you’re leading?
  • [3:08] I think the first is Building Awareness, the second is Leadership Accountability and last but not least, is storytelling, so these are the three areas that we touch upon on our inclusion journey.
  • [7:04] Can you share with us how inclusion makes business sense as well?
  • [8:15] First of all, I think it is about innovation, the second is the talent imperative and I think the third thing is that lack of inclusion gets in the way of agility. So I think those three have a very real impact on the top and bottom line of any company.
  • [10:44] How is P&G taking care of the mental health of its employees?
  • [13:55] How has the overall feedback been from your employees who have undergone this mental health? What are some of your findings and your learnings in this journey along the way? 
  • [14:54] The role of an organization is to provide the space, access, and tools so that anyone feels empowered to make the choice that works for them.
  • [16:00] What are your team doing differently when it comes to talent, attraction and acquisition to development management that lead to such high retention?
  • [17:05] A few things that we do focus on first is putting development of people at the core. Second is putting the people manager and their kind of direct report at the center of everything and I think the third thing is being a global company taking advantage of the ability to be able to move people around with different experiences, different businesses,  and categories.
  • [20:10] What skills, whether soft or technical skills, according to you, are essential for professionals to move to senior level leadership roles?
  • [20:53] So probably the most enduring skill, I’d say, for leaders or for anyone is curiosity. The second one that I talked about is digital because no matter which part of the business you’re in, the world is changing. The third one, a softer skill is resilience.
  • [24:03] What would you say are some of the ways in which people can build on their resilience, which the last one and a half years has taught us? 
  • [24:14] I think one way is putting yourself in situations which sometimes push you into, not just out of your comfort zone, but sometimes even your panic zone. So putting yourself in situations, which make you uncomfortable doing it frequently, intentionally, even if it’s small, I think that builds resilience.
  • [26:09] What advice would you give to people entering the workforce if they want to have an exciting career?
  • [26:28] Be curious. Don’t box yourself in because the world is changing so fast that sometimes you discover your passion or your passion discovers you but you have to keep yourself open to it. 
  • [27:45] What do you think are the key factors which allowed you to have such a thriving international career?
  • [28:12] So one is to immerse yourself in different cultures. Don’t start with thinking that you know it, but immerse yourself to understand where the other person and the business are coming from.

Quote from the Episode:

About the Host:

The host, Shub Faujdar leads our Organizational Development business and is curating frameworks to transform your organization’s workforce by working with world-class facilitators and trainers from the Supply Chain space. As with everything in Alcott Global, our frameworks and programs are specially created to meet the needs of the industry and then further customized to the needs of each organization.

Alcott Global connects and upgrades the supply chain ecosystem by finding the right talent through executive search, developing talent through learning solutions, and meeting supply chain technology needs through a comprehensive crunch base marketplace.

The supply chain executive search has been our focus since the very beginning, offering recruitment services for top-tier supply chain roles at every level of the end-to-end supply chain: plan, source / procure, make, and deliver. Our consultants have years of experience in placing top talent, in North America, LATAM, Europe, the Middle East & Africa, and APAC, and besides speed, one of our biggest strengths is our network within the supply chain industry, and we capitalize on it to find the best solutions.

Through the years, we have grown as an organization and our offerings with it. One of our initiatives, the learning solutions- training and supply chain academy, is focused on transforming leadership- self-leadership, executive presence, influence capital, and business acumen. Through Supplify, we aim to match corporations with the top technology companies to solve their supply chain and logistics challenges with a focus on innovation and digital transformation.

We are in constant touch with the leaders in supply chain, inviting them to inspire the supply chain professionals in thought-provoking podcast episodes and events, and showcasing what is possible at the yearly Leaders in Supply Chain Awards.

Related Episodes:

#02: Mette Johansson, Founder and Executive Coach – MetaMind Training and Andrew Bryant, Motivational Speaker & Executive Coach – Self Leadership

#03: Dylan Choong Vice President, Human Resources at Adidas

#04: Susana Elvira, VP, Global Head of Human Resources – Ocean and Logistics at A.P. Moller – Maersk

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