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Sajiri Chidgupkar: Challenging Traditional Roles


Sajiri Chidgupkar
Director & Principal Consultant

Despite the hardships many women endure daily, the 21st century is for women. It has witnessed tremendous achievements in three major areas - education, rights and leadership. This has driven the change with accelerating gender equality. The dynamics of today’s business environment has changed particularly because of women business leaders playing an important role in making the transition away from business as usual. Not only are they leading in managerial roles but also assuming personal responsibility for tackling issues concerning gender equality, poverty eradication, children, education and climate change.

One such inspiring story is of Sajiri Chidgupkar. As a HR professional with over a decade’s experience in various verticals of HR, Sajiri creates connect with the participants which lasts beyond the program and ensures a greater implementation of the learning from the workshop.“It all started with an aim to bring in more end result focused in the area of people processes. We are always focused on being able to show a bottom line difference in our offerings. It is definitely not easy, but having our focus clear has played its role. In fact, I refer to it as people processes and not as HR as for reasons to which we have all contributed HR have become synonymous with recruitment,” she avers.

Sajiri’s corporate profile has seen her working in various verticals of human resource management like employee engagement before moving into the learning vertical. Her initial years as a business partner HR has given her the ability to see how the HR processes work at the ground level. She brings with her an ability to gauge the practicality of an HR or OD initiative from the reality of implementation. The constant support by her family and friends has proved to an important factor for her high achievements. “It would not have been possible without the support of my family. They have always respected my passion. We realized it very early that, to be able to run after our passions, everyone in the family would have to work in perfect tandem and though we at times fail we are very sure that is the way forward,” she says.

Turning Obstacles into Opportunities
Business plans, while quintessential for any business, can’t predict everything. Even the most prepared of business leaders have unforeseen challenge that can be incredibly discouraging, breeding grief and lots of undue second-guessing. Sajiri is no exception. One of the earliest challenges she faced at AnD Solutions was that of perception. “There is a very strong perception about how a consultant should look like. So, consultants should be old (because supposedly age guarantees experience), consultant should have worked in the same industry, results should be visible within a month if not a week. The biggest hurdle was the perception that anyone can do HR. These are perception we still fight on a daily basis,” she informs.
With hard-work, perseverance and zeal, Sajiri has helped AnD to garner a respectable position in the market that defines the structured 4D approach of management to solve all the problems. AnD has made two global tie ups, the first with Dr. Brett Savage’s Organization The Next Phase of Leadership LLC, based out of the U.S. “This partnership has allowed us to bring to India a unique approach to developing managerial capabilities in the organization. Grounded on 45 years of global research and implementation, it is a truly great approach. We have recently implemented in an IT, MNC and we were able to show case a little of 300 percent of ROI,” she adds.

Another milestone is AnD's journey is the recent franchise of ISEOR a French institute on the concept of Socio-Economic Approach to Management. This is a very unique and well researched Organization Developmental intervention which help organizations to not only identify the dysfunctions in the organizations but also the cost associated with it. With proper implementation, organizations have seen an increase of their employees’ hourly contribution go up by 35 percent-55 percent. It has been implemented in 1879 companies across 42 countries. AnD is the exclusive franchise in India to implement SEAM

Going that Extra Mile
Understanding the reality of at times when she is not being able to manage every thing but accepting it a part of her choice is what gives her inner strength to go against all the odds and shine bright. She leaves no stone unturned to break the barriers of drawing that imaginary line between work and life. She says,” The definition of work-life balance is very individual. What one person finds hectic could be challenging and exciting for other. It is very individual problem and an important one at that. Each one of us needs to sit and have a talk with ourselves and get our priorities on line.”

Exploring the road that leads to endless possibilities, Sajiri in the coming times would like to be involved to make college fresher’s industry ready. “The other aspect we are working on is making organizations ready for the analytics wave. Everyone today is talking of analytics but very few have the framework to actually capture data let alone use it for analytics,” she concludes.

Panel 1:
Quick Facts:
Education – Masters in HR
Self Quote – It’s a journey; it isn’t easy but wouldn’t want it any other way!

Work Experience:
Employee Relation Manager - 3DPLM Software Solutions Limited, December 2006 – February 2009
Resource Management
Attrition Management
Employee Engagement
Induction Process
Performance Management


Management Associate Geometric Ltd., March 2008 – February 2009
Technical Competency Framework
Training management( Content Development, Vendor management)
Succession Planning Framework Creation
Sabbatical Policy Framework Creation


Director and Principal Consultant, AnD HR Solutions LLP,March 2009– Present