Ketki Shirvalkar
Twenty-two years in core HR — across sales, engineering design, manufacturing, education and the social sector — most of it leading people functions inside global engineering organisations.
- 22
- years in core HR
- 6
- sectors worked across
- MPM, LLB
- Pune University
- Pune
- serving clients across India
Profile
Ketki Shirvalkar has spent twenty-two years in core HR, and almost none of it in one kind of room. She has led the people function of a large global engineering centre through a mass restructuring, run HR end to end for a business spanning India and South East Asia, built a corporate learning centre from nothing, and started out drafting policy work on the legal and ethical questions around HIV/AIDS.
That range is the point. Sales floors, engineering design teams, manufacturing plants, a business school and a legal advocacy unit all run on people, and each one breaks differently. Twenty-two years of watching where they break is what she brings into a room now.
Her working belief is a simple one and rarer than it sounds: that a fair, respectful culture and a commercially serious business are the same project, not competing ones. Strategy that ignores how people actually behave does not survive contact with a Monday morning.
She founded KAJ Ventures so that growing companies could reach that judgement without carrying a full-time CHRO — and brings in experienced specialists alongside her when an engagement needs depth beyond her own.
“Good HR isn't paperwork. It's the reason people stay.”
Six kinds of organisation. One recurring problem.
Sales floors, plants, design teams and classrooms all run on people, and each one goes wrong in its own way. Recognising which kind of wrong you have is most of the job.
Global engineering
People leadership inside engineering design and R&D organisations operating across borders.
Manufacturing
Plant and auto-component environments — shop-floor realities, not just head-office policy.
Sales organisations
Hire-to-retire HR for customer-facing businesses, where headcount moves with the order book.
Higher education
Corporate programme design in a business school, and teaching engineering students today.
Social sector
Legal advocacy and public-policy work at the start of her career, on rights at work and in care.
Advisory
Consulting to growing companies on people strategy, hiring and organisational development.
What she was actually responsible for.
Led people strategy as People Head for four businesses inside a global engineering group, with regional responsibility spanning India and South East Asia across sales, manufacturing, engineering and aftermarket.
Led HR for a large global engineering centre for nine years — talent acquisition, learning and development, organisational development and engagement — as the centre grew and then restructured.
Ran generalist, hire-to-retire HR for two sales organisations, and replaced the spreadsheets behind it with a system the business could actually run on.
Built and ran a manufacturing group's corporate learning centre from nothing: curriculum, external partners, policy and evaluation.
Designed and delivered corporate training programmes in a higher-education setting, and began her career in legal advocacy — running workshops for NGOs, hospitals, judges and companies.
What that experience actually produced.
- Instrumental in the mass organisational restructuring of a large engineering centre.
- Established the internal HR organisation of a global engineering centre as it scaled.
- Contributed to the vision, mission and people-management strategy of the organisation.
- Recruited 100 service engineers across India inside a single year.
- Core member of a cross-company diversity and inclusion task force.
- Created group-wide best practice for learning, talent acquisition and gender diversity.
What two decades in-house actually covers.
- Talent acquisition
- Employee engagement
- Competence development
- Diversity and inclusion
- Policies and procedures
- Performance systems
- Induction and on-boarding
- HR audits
How KAJ Ventures is staffed
Founder-led, and strengthened by experienced specialists and advisors where the work calls for deeper expertise. An engagement that runs into specialist employment law, payroll technicality, or assessment design brings in someone who does that for a living — rather than stretching the brief to fit one person’s expertise.
Professional credentials
- MPM
- Pune University, 2006
- LLB
- Pune University, 2002
- B.Com
- Pune University, 1999
Calm, direct, and built around your team.
Personally led
Every engagement is led by Ketki — no handover to a rotating bench of juniors — with experienced advisors brought in where a problem needs specialist depth.
Plain-spoken
No HR jargon, no buzzwords. Just clear diagnosis, clear options, and clear next steps.
Builds your capability
The goal is to make your team self-sufficient — not to create a permanent dependency.
Bring her your hardest people-problem.
30 minutes, free, no obligation — bring your messiest people-problem.
Free, no obligation, and no pitch.