Cognizant appoints veteran HR executive Soma Pandey

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Cognizant appoints veteran HR executive Soma Pandey

Cognizant has appointed Soma Pandey, a veteran Human Resources HR executive, Head of Talent Management. Soma will be responsible for the management of the enterprise talent strategy including key people practices, talent and performance management, learning and leadership development, culture and employee experience. After 25 years of service, Suresh Bethavandu, Cognizant's former Head Talent Acquisition, left the firm and joined Mindtree as Chief Peoples Officer.

As a statement, Soma brings more than 25 years of progressive HR leadership with experience spanning diverse sectors and roles in organisations such as Accenture, Randstad, Mastek and ITC Ltd. She joined Firstsource Solutions, where she was the CHRO for close to five years, according to the Nasdaq listed firm.

The firm's New-Jersey headquartered firm reported the highest ever attrition at 33 percent in the September quarter of IT services, with talent retention a major concern for the technology major. Nearly 2 lakh of Cognizant's workforce is based in India, out of more than 3.1 lakh employees.

Becky Schmitt, Chief People Officer, Cognizant, said at Cognizant, "We firmly believe that people are our most valuable asset." We are excited that Soma will be welcomed to the Cognizant family at a time when we are investing in the growth and engagement of our talent more than ever. He added that he looks forward to the way Soma will foster our distinct, high-performance culture, accelerate careers, drive engagement and empower new-age leadership capabilities that will have an impact on our clients.

Soma is a master at envisioning and executing large-scale transformations in people practices and has stewarded businesses through culture transformations, leadership transitions, business divestments and acquisitions, HR technology and shared services deployments in myriad global contexts, according to the company.

We have learned to be more human than ever and embraced tremendous change during the long months of the Pandemic. We are learning about the future of work and how we can create energizing experiences for people that inspire, develop and engage them. I am excited to join and partner with team members at this time of growth to ensure Cognizant continues to be a place where everyone is driven by purpose and empowered to do their best work, said Soma Pandey, Head of Talent Management at Cognizant.

Soma is an alumna at the Xavier Labour Relations Institute XLRI in Jamshedpur, India and is an SHRM Senior Certified Professional.

In the last quarter alone, Cognizant added more than 17,000 new employees. More than any other time, the company continues to invest in employee success, career development, equity and inclusion.