Speaker Profile

Kaustav Chakravarthy

Executive Director, Global Human Resources
Johnson Controls-Hitachi Air Conditioning

Kaustav Chakravarthy serves as the Executive Director of Global Human Resources at Johnson Controls-Hitachi Air Conditioning Inc. He leads a 150-strong global team of human resource professionals who work closely with the executive leadership to design and deliver its comprehensive people strategy at its manufacturing, sales and logistics locations around the world.

In his previous assignment at Lenovo Group, he served in multiple roles, including HR Director for Southeast Asia, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Korea, and before that as the Asia Pacific Director for People and Organisational Capability. In earlier assignments, he served as Vice-President of Leadership and Talent Development for Accenture’s global growth markets; Learning and Development Leader with Ernst & Young GSS India; and worked with other companies, including Robert Bosch and Infosys.

He has two master’s degrees in business administration and psychotherapy and brings to the table 20 years of professional experience in varied fields, predominantly corporate HR and consulting, with deep domain expertise in talent and performance management, leadership development and organisational development.

As a corporate HR leader and a learning and OD expert, he has helped devise and execute HR and learning strategies for over 50 organisations across 14 sectors, delivering measurable business results. He has significant entrepreneurial and general management experience with large multinational organisations and has driven large cross-geography HR projects and co-founded a successful boutique L&OD consulting firm. He is also a seasoned facilitator with extensive experience in instructor-led, self-paced, virtual and social learning and has facilitated a large number of workshops with participants ranging from the CEO-level to students.

On the personal front, Kaustav is a passionate singer trained in Indian Carnatic Classical music who also plays several musical instruments. He shares his love for Indian music and its culture with his wife, Dr Geetha Bhat, an accomplished professional concert musician and a practising child psychologist, and their two young children, Manasvi, 15, who is an upcoming Bharatanatyam dancer, and ShreeRaghava, 10, who is already one of the youngest certified yoga teachers in the world.