Smita A Kesarkar

About Smita A Kesarkar

Passionate HR professional with over 13 years of experience driving talent acquisition, workforce planning, and employee engagement across marine, software, and manufacturing industries. I specialize in developing talent identification and nurturing programs linked to Performance Management Systems (PMS) and Learning & Development (L&D), resulting in a 9% increase in high performers and a 7% reduction in bottom-line talent, in addition reduced attrition by 7% through career development platforms and IDPs.My collaborative approach has led to a 20% reduction in recruitment cycle time and elevated employee engagement levels to 76%. Skilled in aligning HR initiatives with global business strategies and managing multinational teams, I am committed to fostering inclusive and high-performing environments that drive organizational growth.Let\'s connect to explore opportunities in strategic HR leadership, talent development, and organizational transformation.

Experience

1. Manager - Hrbp

   Neptunus Power

   Feb 2022 — Present · Navi Mumbai, IN

   Talent Acquisition: Developed an agile recruitment ecosystem by implementing an ATS system and streamlining interview processes, leading to a 20% reduction in niche hiring like IoT automation and Engine experts. Workforce Planning: Partnered with technical institutes like NIT/VJTI to build talent pipelines for automation solutions. For Marine workforce, achieved 70% workforce utilization globally.L&D: Spearheaded organizational change to embed a competency-based learning framework for engineers — ran impact assessments, manager enablement and learning campaigns; improved training effectiveness by 30% and increased internal promotions by 15%Retention Strategies: Reduced attrition by 7% through continual improvement in Talent management & PMS strategy with functional org structure and visible career progression with clear KPI and KRAs. Defined change KPIs (adoption rates, completion, reduction in process cycle time, business metric impact) and implemented dashboards to monitor progress and course-correct.Conducted stakeholder analysis and impact assessments to prioritise initiatives, identify adoption risks and define mitigation actions to secure buy-in at leadership and operational levels.Policy Development: Designed global travel policies including market mapping on site allowances. Simplified HR manuals for seamless compliance and built the employee benefits policy framework from scratch, contributing to ISO 9001:2015 / 14001 certification.C&B (Total rewards): Led the org project for designing the annual compensation structure, ensuring alignment with business numbers, Sales pricing and bringing parity between engineers. Crafted a wealth creation program, as part of ESSOPs for the product function.

Education

• Symbiosis Centre For Management and Human Resource Development

  PGDBA, Human Resources Management/Personnel Administration, General

  2014 — 2016

• GHSEB

  Gujarat University, Business/Commerce, General

• XLRI Jamshedpur

  Talent management , Human Resources Management/Personnel Administration, General