Episode 10 – 33 Years in HR: From Tata to RPG to Welspun, No Corporate Filter

"If you consider HR a support function or a corporate function, I'm not the right person for your organization." That's the line Priyaranjan Kumar says he's used in interviews for over a decade — and it's the filter that shaped a 33-year HR career across Tata, Dr. Reddy's, RPG Group, Hikal, Navin Fluorine and Welspun Corp. In this episode of Swipe Right for Talent, CBREX Co-Founder & COO Sanjeev Punwani sits down with Priyaranjan — now Founder & CEO of AILS (Attitude & Intelligence Learning Systems) — for a rare, unscripted walk through three decades of HR: from personnel management in the DOS-command era to AI doing the coding it once took institutes to teach. They get into: → Why HR should never see itself as a support function → How a 2,800-employee company was still running payroll on Excel, errors and all → Why job-hopping in the first 5 years quietly caps a career (the "dig one well" story) → What global hiring taught him about culture, privacy, and reading people right → Why he started AILS after overhearing a coffee shop conversation in 2011 → The sabbatical India still isn't ready for This episode is hosted by Sanjeev Punwani, Co-Founder & COO of CBREX — Swipe Right for Talent continues its new format featuring conversations led by CBREX's leadership team. Chapters (approximate — verify against final edit before publishing): 0:00 Intro — 33 years across Tata, Dr. Reddy's, RPG, Welspun 2:53 The Ratan Tata story and the "people first" philosophy 6:58 From DOS commands to AI — three decades of HR tech 12:14 "Dig one well, not ten" — the case against job-hopping 16:01 Why onboarding shrank from one year to one week 23:39 "Is HR a business function?" — his non-negotiable interview question 28:11 Going global — why "fired three times" isn't a red flag in the US 36:44 Dr. Reddy's 1999 playbook for building global talent 44:09 Inside RPG's no-cabin, no-timesheet culture 52:53 2,800 employees, payroll on Excel — and they're fine with it 59:00 Founding AILS — the coffee shop conversation that started it all 1:06:11 A scientist, a guitar, and a sabbatical India still isn't ready for 1:09:05 His one rule for companies going global Listen on Spotify: [link] Follow CBREX: cbr.exchange #SwipeRightForTalent #CBREX #HRLeadership #TalentAcquisition #CHRO #FutureOfWork #PeopleFirst