Mr. Saugata Mitra, Chief People Officer & Group Head Human Resource, Mother Dairy

Mr. Saugata Mitra is the Chief People Officer & Group Head Human Resource at Mother Dairy, India’s second largest Dairy & Food Company with 4000 crore turnover and over 6000 employees. His responsibilities range from preparing HR strategy to improving productivity by various innovative HR practices to developing organization culture to looking after the Sr. management’s compensation system.

With two post graduate degrees in Sociology from University of Pune and MBA from SIBM and with the “Valmiki Rolling Trophy for Scholastic Performance of High Order” award he started his career with Anerican Trans national, Union carbide. In a career spanning over 20 years he has been associated with various Fortune 500 companies.


Mr. Mitra is the recipient of various national and international awards. Some of them which are:
1. Sony Asia Pacific Award, Singapore for being judged as “The Regional High Potential” in 2000.
2.Sony Chairman’s award Tokyo for being judged as “International High Potential” in 2004.
3. Global Leadership Award at the World HR Congress-2008
4. Exemplary Leader Award at the 3rd Employer Branding Awards-2008
5. Pride of the Industry Award in 2009.


In the year 2008 Mr. Mitra published his book “18 Management Competencies Business Professionals Cannot Ignore!” which met with huge success both nationally and internationally. The book sold 4000 copies and was the No. 1 Business book at the Gazelle Book Services, London for more than 60 days. Mr. Mitra is also a member of various HR organization and Management Institutes.

Nihar Ranjan Ghosh,Sr. Vice President – HR, RPG Retail Sector

Nihar Ghosh, is the Sr. Vice President – Human Resource for the Retail Sector of RPG Group, with responsibility for Spencer’s Retail Limited, Music World Retail (Books & Beyond & Mera World) and Au Bon Pain Café India Ltd. He graduated with a Master’s Degree in Social Works from Indore School of Social Work in 1985.

Mr. Ghosh is a seasoned HR professional with over two decades of rich and diverse background in Multinational Corporation, Family Managed Conglomerates, Federal Agency and Academic Institution in India, Middle East & Asia Pacific Region. His critical management and consulting assignments span FMCG, Food Processing, Petrochemical, Retailing, Knowledge Management and Health Care industry.

Mr. Ghosh held HR leadership roles in Johnson & Johnson Medical India & Asia Pacific, Alghanim Industries and Human Soft Limited in Kuwait and at Profiles International in Dubai. In the early part of his career, he has also worked at IIM Ahmedabad, National Dairy Development Board, Reliance Industries. Mr. Ghosh is chiefly interested in Talent Acquisition, Talent Management, Organization Development and Performance Management. He is also an active trainer and process facilitator.

Rahul Ghatak, Vice President & Head Human Resources, CEAT LIMITED

Mr. Rahul Ghatak is the Vice President & Head Human Resources at CEAT LIMITED. Mr. Ghatak has been at the forefront of driving change and restructuring the Organization through reinforcement of Critical Culture Pillars, Self Managed Teams and Quality Based Management at CEAT.


Having done his graduation in Political Science from University of Calcutta he did his Masters in Sociology from Jawaharlal Nehru University and Personnel Management & Industrial Relations from TISS. He is also Certified in Occupational Testing Techniques & OPQ by SHL. He is also a Certified Facilitator by DDI.

He has over 15 years of experience in leading organizations such as ITC, HSBC, Pepsico and CEAT (RPG). He is an expert in the field of HR Management / Talent Management / Change Management / Performance Management / Employee Relations. He was the recipient of the Global Chairman’s Award at Pepsico and the NCPEDP-Shell Helen Keller Award.

Profile of Ramesh A. Poddar,Chief Mentor, Modi Group

Mr. Ram Poddar is the Chief Executive of Godfrey Phillips India Limited, a leading cigarette manufacturer in India having participating business association with Philip Morris of USA and Modi Group of Industries since the past 24 years. He has been the Chief Mentor of Modi Group of companies including Godfrey Phillips India Limited. Mr. Poddar has had several years of work experience across diverse sectors such as automobile, textile and tobacco.

Mr. Poddar has contributed greatly to0 many professional institutions across India both as a member and a dispenser of authority. Mr. Poddar is the Chairman of the Tobacco Institute of India and Indirect Taxes Committee of PHD Chamber of Commerce. He is the Vice President of Indian Chamber of Commerce & Industry, New Delhi. Mr.Poddar is a distinguished member as well as past Chairman of The Advertising Standards Council of India. He is a member of the Governing Body of The Indian Council of Arbitration, Executive Committee of International Chamber of Commerce and various other committees including those of Industry and Consumer Products of Federation of Indian Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Confederation of Indian Industry and Assocham. Mr. Poddar is the founder trustee of “Divine Care”.

Mr. Poddar is a Chartered Accountant and holds degrees in Advanced Management Programs of Harvard Business School and University of Southern California.

Profile of Shri Rakesh Makhija,MD,SKF India

Shri Rakesh Makhija is the managing director of SKF India, a leading manufacturer of bearing and related products. He completed his graduation in Chemical Engineering from the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi and moved to Kinetic Technology International, BV where he worked for over 8 years. 

He had a long stint with Tata Honeywell and Honeywell International, a global Industrial and Aerospace company, where he held senior management positions. In 1997, he was nominated to the Tata Honeywell Board of Directors and soon afterwards promoted to Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director. In April 2000 he was appointed as Country Manager and Managing Director of Honeywell International, with responsibilities for driving the company's growth in Asia.

At SKF, under his leadership the company has tripled its sales revenue and is poised to transform itself into a knowledge engineering company. Besides work, Shri Makhija is an avid reader and a keen golf and squash enthusiast.

Profile of Shri R.Maitra, Executive Director, EEPC India

Shri R. Maitra had joined the Engineering Export Promotion Council (EEPC) on 16 Nov 1981, as Deputy Director (Accounts). Being a professionally qualified Chartered Accountant and having prior audit experience in various audit firms, Shri Maitra’s advent to EEPC as above was quite justifiable. With the passage of time, it was an important milestone in his career, as it marked the beginning of 26 years of professional excellence that eventually led him to crown the highest Executive Post as the Executive Director of EEPC. Of course, his elevation had not come in a day and certainly not easily.  He earned it by way of his dedication and devotion to the organization and given his supreme dedication and analytical mind, both the Committee of Administration and the Working Committee have bestowed the post of the Executive Director to a person of immense ability.

In his professional journey, in EEPC, Shri Maitra not only handled accounts but was later made the Secretary and the Joint Director (Administration). Subsequently, he was elevated to the post of the Addl. Executive Director. Shri Maitra has been instrumental in organising various promotional events in India and abroad and the present flagship event INDEEs which are being held twice in every year in different parts of the globe has created a new dimension in popularizing brand image of the country.  He played a pivotal role in Council’s achieving accreditation of ISO 9001-2000 Certification for its specialization in organizing exclusive engineering exhibition. Shri Maitra, during his tenure, faced a lot of challenges both from the Government and the employees of EEPC, as he witnessed first hand the impact of liberalization on India and on the foreign trade, itself - a turbulent phase in the history of trade in India.

However in spite of all odds, Shri Maitra have managed to keep abreast with the changing times and this had been possible because of his drive and ability to draw the best out of his colleagues.

He has widely traveled to countries like Brazil, South Africa, various African countries, Bangladesh, Cairo, Ethiopia, Indonesia, U.K., USA, Germany, Mexico, Venezuela, Russia, China, Malaysia etc. EEPC still has the highest membership and is a highest foreign exchange earner that possibly a Council can boast of.

Speakers at IIFT's National Manufacturing Symposium 2009

Eminent speakers gracing the symposium 2009 are:

Inaugural Session

• Shri S.K Roongta, Chairman of Steel Authority of India (SAIL), the Chief Guest for the event.

• Shri R K Jain, Chief(Joint Secretary) of NMCC, the Key Note Speaker

Session 1: Maintaining Firm Level Competitiveness

• Mr. S.Sandliya, Chairman, Eicher Motors Limited.


• Mr. Rakesh Makhija, Managing Director, SKF.



• Mr. Amit Chatterjee, Adviser to MD, Tata Steel



• Mr. G Chatterjee, Director, Exide.

Session 2: Talent Management: A Challenge to Manufacturing Sector

• Mr. Adil Malia, India HR Head, Essar Group.
• Mr. Nihar Ranjan Ghosh, Sr VP-HR, RPG Retail
• Mr. Anirudh Singh, Group HR Head, JSW Group


• Mr. Rahul Ghatak, Vice President-HR , Ceat.
• Mr. Saugata Mitra, People Officer & Group Head HR, Mother Dairy

Session 3: Manufacturing and Protectionism

• Mr. Ram Poddar, Chief Mentor & CEO ,Godfrey Phillips.


• Mr. R Maitra, Executive Director, EEPC.
• Dr. K Rangarajan, Professor & IIFT Kolkata Campus