Vrinda Sood

Ecolab (estd 1923) is an American global provider of water, hygiene and energy technologies and services to the food, energy, healthcare, industrial and hospitality markets - is a $14Bn group & has 49K associates.
Report to VP HR META & Global VP Compensation & Benefits
• Head compensation and benefits for Middle East and Africa region for Ecolab which also includes Turkey, Israel and Pakistan - covers more than 2000 associates in 40+ countries.
• Driving all C&B related processes such as merit, bonus, sales incentives, market adjustments and executive compensation etc. for the region.
• Driving stakeholder management for alignments on projects and initiatives
• Ensuring cost consciousness while evaluating compensation decisions, as well as, from external and internal equity standpoint.
• Proactively review market dynamics (Localization of talent, Saudization, BBBEE, Egypt Inflation, Turkey Lira devaluation etc.) to retain & attract best talent.
• Driving harmonization of allowances & benefits project to streamline the compensation structures of associates acquired during acquisitions. Result to have consistent & market aligned structures by country and grade.
• Support M&A activities for the region from entity integration, C&B and grading standpoint. Successfully completed integration of 2 plants in Saudi Arabia with a saving of SAR 1 million. Worked on 4 acquisitions in the last 2.5 years (from due diligence to complete integration & harmonization).
• Redesigned sales incentive plans, country bonus plans for the region to have well defined, consistent and performance linked plans that drive business performance - resulted in better governance and administration of bonus to the tune of $ 5 million.
• Created MEA C&B Playbook and lead project to scale it up globally to support the HR and business leaders globally to better understand and drive C&B processes. Serves as a one stop shop for all C&B related materials, providing more clarity, transparency and better speed of delivery, also empower managers, leaders and HR locally.
• PMO Leader - Organizational design & effectiveness - business growth & optimization
• Corporate Spin off - part of the project team working on the separation of $2.5 billion upstream business
• Driving Policy reviews - car benefits, HR policies, other employee benefits
• Championing change management to drive productivity, agility and effectiveness to the business from C&B standpoint by bringing in robust frameworks, principles, processes, templates and alignment to total rewards view.
• As COE lead, work as an in-house consultant to solution day to day issues in concerned area.
• Partner with finance leaders to develop and grow the finance organization.

Airtel (estd 1995) is India’s biggest telecommunications services company that operates in 20 countries across Asia and Africa - is a $14Bn group with over 26K employees globally.
Reported directly to SVP & Head Global Rewards
Global Mobility:
• Led the expats management team responsible for 200+ expats in 28 countries across Africa, Middle East, USA, UK, Singapore, Hong Kong and chairing cross functional team for mobility automation process - right from identification of vendor to planning, design and implementation
• As Global Mobility lead, designed robust mobility frameworks & Global Mobility policy.
• Well experienced with complete lifecycle management of expats from package creation to ongoing policy interventions, like annual merit increments, COLA and currency revisions, tax, social security and other compliances.
• Led mobility policy & benefit review & benchmarking to ensure market competitiveness & compliance.
• Led the design of a new, competitive and more effective expatriation model for Airtel globally.
• Designed global mobility process with clear responsibilities, DOAs, escalation matrices and SLAs, bringing in standardization, clarity and time efficiencies.
• Established stringent governing & audit framework - resulting in USD 350K as direct savings.

Rewards Partnering:
• Rewards lead for Airtel’s B2B division (2000+ employees)- Enterprise and Government Business, Global Business & Nxtra data centre supporting employees across Africa, India, US, Middle East, Europe, Hong Kong and Singapore.
• Responsible for driving rewards interventions such as job evaluation process, senior hire offers, salary benchmarking (telecom forum), ring-fencing, special interventions, designing sales incentive plans, org effectiveness and pay ranges.
• Led sales incentive plan benchmarking both internally and externally.
• Partnered with business on annual salary review process for Bangladesh, Sri Lanka & B2B division (2500+ employees). Led job evaluation process centrally as a part of the annual performance review.
• Recommended enhancements and built capabilities for end users for online compensation tool (IBM’s Reward+), as internal lead for this system.

Ranbaxy (now Sun Pharma - estd 1961) HQ in India is global organization & is the world’s fifth largest specialty generic pharmaceutical company - had over 15K employees across 45+ countries.
Reported directly to Global Head of Rewards

Rewards Partnering/ Rewards Policy:
• Drove annual salary review processes, market corrections, increments, bonuses & promotions, compensation benchmarking across emerging markets APAC, Middle East, Africa and LATAM.
• Worked on executive compensation benchmarking for India.
• Drafted key policies on rewards - principles for increments/ bonus etc.
Global Mobility:
• Led the expats management process globally across 40+ countries for over 120+ expats.
• Designed expat compensation packages factoring in cost of living, hardship, currency exchange rates fluctuations, tax and social security differentials, along with driving end to end operations.
Global Job Leveling & Job Evaluations/ Org Effectiveness:
• Internal subject matter expert on job evaluations using Hay methodology (certified).
• Evaluated over 3000+ roles globally, ensuring global equivalences.
• Led global implementation of the online job evaluation tool (JEM).
• Drove organization-wide process of identification & creation of job families, unique jobs & job dictionary.
• Extensively worked on reviewing grading structure.
Change Management and M&A:
• Worked extensively on policy & process mapping during Ranbaxy - Sun Pharmaceutical merger, as a part of the integration team representing HR SME functions (Rewards, Performance & Talent Management).
Performance Management:
• Led performance management process globally for over 6, 000 employees.
• Drove activities ranging from target/ KRA setting, to mid-year review to normalization.
• Conceptualized the design for the online performance management system to include appraisal on KRAs, behaviors competencies, 360 feedback, KRA cascade and developmental interventions.
• Subsequently, led transition & implementation of new tool ahead of timeline, ensuring end user communication, capability building & training.
Global Talent Management:
• Designed effective talent management process and creation of ‘Talent books’ globally upto CXO level.
• Identified and planned developmental interventions of hi-potential talent globally. Facilitated creation of talent pipeline/ succession plans for critical roles.
Recognition, HR Business Partnering:
• Project manager for the company’s biggest & global recognition program (Ranbaxy WAY Awards).
• Responsible for providing HR support (performance management, grievance handling, PIPs etc.) to HR and admin employees (40+).

• Worked on AT&T telecom billing system - application development and maintenance.
• Project manager for AT&T’s server (client) migration. Platform: AS/400, Mainframes, Unix and PL/SQL