Harjeet Khanduja

Harjeet Khanduja is an Indian business executive, author, speaker, poet, inventor, Influencer and HR leader. He currently serves as Senior Vice President, HR at Reliance Jio and has held positions at Tata Motors, Nicholas Piramal, Reliance Retail and Anthelio. Khanduja is also known for his TEDx talks and lectures at IIMs and IITs inspiring the youth. He is considered as a leader in human resource technology and holds three patents on HR Technology.
Khanduja is an author and has published three books. He is a contributing author to various books. He writes a column “The H with HR” for Human Capital and Alag Hai for People First HR Magazine. He is a contributing writer for several magazines including People Matters, Business Manager, SightsinPlus, Education Post, Human Factor, IT Next, and People and Management. He got featured in “Heroes Amongst Us”, an inspirational book by Dr. Amit Nagpal, depicting real life stories of ordinary people who achieved extraordinary success. He has published three books, Nothing about Business in 2020.
Khanduja is a keynote speaker and speaks frequently at conferences and industry events on the topics of human resource and human resource technology. He first appeared on Indian television in 1997 on Doordarshan, since then he has been regularly seen on SAB TV and NDTV.
==Early life and education==
Khanduja was born on 16 January 1975 in Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh, India. Right from a young age, he has always been zestful about performing and has participated in several Hasya Kavi Sammelans (Humorous Poetry Slams) and radio shows. Khanduja completed BE in industrial technology from Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee in 1996. During his time at college, he founded “Watch Out”, campus media body of IIT Roorkee and was also a recipient of Thomson Medal.
In 2005, he pursued MBA from Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Sciences. Khanduja also attended INSEAD in 2013.
==Career==
===Human Resources===
Harjeet Khanduja is an Indian corporate executive for the telecommunication industry. He is currently the Senior Vice President HR at Reliance Jio. Khanduja began his career as an Engineer Trainee for Tata Motors, where he worked for a span of 8 years. He was then a Deputy General Manager at Nicholas Piramal for 2 years. Joining Reliance Retail, he established all of the Company’s HR processes for its retail business and mapped them to the technology. A celebrated member of the Reliance group, Khanduja has seen this organization grow from 500 employees to 28,000 employees.
Later in 2009, Khanduja took a leadership role at the Conjoin group as Head of Talent Engagement and Development. After the company’s expansion, Khanduja took the CHRO role for the Conjoin group companies - Avotus and Anthelio. With his exemplary work, Khanduja won the Nasscom Diversity Award 3 times in a row for the Conjoin Group, resulting in him becoming the co-chairman of the Nasscom Diversity Committee.
Khanduja joined IBSL in 2012 as Vice President Human Resources. He built the leadership team of IBSL and established the HR process. His remarkable work helped the company grow tremendously, having about 100,000 employees as of today's date. Later on IBSL was renamed as Reliance Jio. As of 31 December 2019, it is the largest mobile network in India and the third largest network provider in the world with over 387.5 million subscribers.
===Poetry===
Harjeet had a keen interest in performing at Hasya Kavi Sammelans and radio shows from an early age. Harjeet performed on television for the first time in 1997 on Doordarshan, under the moniker of Sardar Tuktuk. In 1997, he also won the poetry reality game show, हंसगोला, hosted by Arun Gemini.
In his early years, he also contributed to various hindi poetry books, such as हंगामा एक्सप्रेस (Hungama Express), हंसता खिलखिलाता हास्य कवि सम्मेलन (Hansta Khilkhilata Hasya Kavi Sammelan), and हास्य कवियों की व्यंग्य बौछार (Hasya Kaviyon ki vyangya bauchhar). He has also been a long-time contributing writer for Anubhuti, a hindi poetry website.
He was a part of multiple episodes of the famous Hasya Kavi Sammelan show ‘Wah Wah’, that first aired on SAB TV in 1998. The subsequent reboot of the show, ‘Wah Wah, Kya Baat Hai!’ aired in 2012, with multiple episodes featuring Harjeet over the course of the year. 
Harjeet was awarded with a title of ‘Hasya Samrat’ (King of Comedy) in the year 2001. In 2016, Harjeet was invited to perform in a series of television, radio and stage shows in the United States where he was felicitated by the World Hindi Foundation. Harjeet was given Vishwa Hindi Jyoti Bhushan Samman in 2020.
==Membership and appointments==
* Board member of Federation of World Academics
* Member of HR and IR Committee of CII, Western Region. 
* Advisory Board Member, Blogger Alliance
* Member of Quality Assurance and Framework Committee (SAARC Rankings) for ICIR
* Member, Telecom Sector Skill Council
* Member, CII HR and IR Committee, Western Region
* Co-Chairman, Nasscom Diversity Committee
==Books==
Harjeet is known as RK Laxman of Business. He writes simple micro stories which common corporate employees can relate to. He has published 3 books.
===Author===
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* How Leaders Decide, Tackling Biases and Risks in Decision making
===Contributing Author (Books)===
* Chicken Soup of an IITan’s soul
* Touched by Parkinson
* Hungama Express
* Hansta Khilkhilata Kavi Sammelan
* Hasya Kaviyon ki vyangya bauchhar
==Awards==
Harjeet has won several awards and have been jury member for several awards including ET India’s 40 under 40 Emerging HR Leader, HR 40 under 40 and TA Pai Young HR Leader Award.
* 2022: HR Influencer for 2022
* 2022: Top 200 biggest voices in Leadership
* 2021: The Next Big Creator
* 2021: The 100 global thought leaders by peoplehum
* 2019: Top 10 Speakers of India by SpeakIn
* 2019: Top 25 HR Influencers in India by 40 under 40
* 2018: LinkedIn Power Profile
* 2017: Most Innovative HR Tech Leaders (Global) by World HRD Congress
* 2017: Pride of the Nation Award - Best CHROs of India by Asia One
* 2016: LinkedIn Power Profile
* 2012: HR Leadership Award - Asia HRD Congress
* 1996: Thomsan Medal - IIT Roorkee
==Personal life==
His father, Sardar Kalyan Singh was a professor in Bareilly College. He too was a Hindi poet, whose influence can clearly be seen on Khanduja. His mother, Nirmal Kaur Khanduja was a doctor and a social activist. He is married to Jaspreet Kaur Khanduja, a fashion designer. The couple have a son Amanbeer Singh Khanduja. Khanduja is fluent in Hindi, English and Punjabi.
==In the media==
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==References==
==External links==
* Official website
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Category:Indian business executives
Category:Indian motivational speakers
Category:Indian writers
Category:Indian poets
Category:Human resource management