Challenge and Success

From a psychology degree to delivering HR at a global brand, Amanda Rajkumar is clear HR must deliver real value – and making sure the organisation appreciates it.

Throughout her career, Amanda Rajkumar has been a ‘voice of challenge’ in the organisations she’s served. She sees HR as critical to giving businesses a conscience and encouraging leaders to drive improvements in company culture and workforce performance. 

Rajkumar has always ensured her role contributes directly to the business needs of each employer and advocated for a strong CEO-CHRO professional relationship. Leadership must understand, appreciate, and support the impact of HR if it is to make a meaningful difference in the workplace.

With a Bachelors of Science in Psychology, Rajkumar moved away from a research career into recruitment in the early 1990s, working first for a small recruitment firm and quickly rising to leading the recruitment function for JP Morgan. With support and guidance from those around her she learned the role and the industry quickly, gaining invaluable experience and ultimately taking the lead for front office recruitment. 

She was with the company when JP Morgan and Chase merged, an event which provided a huge opportunity: “I saw they needed to bring together a disparate recruitment function across the whole organisation,” she says. “That was a huge challenge and great learning curve for me.” She later joined BNP Paribas where she led Global Human Resources across several businesses and regions.

Her mentor at the time encouraged her to broaden the scope of her expertise to address the wider field of HR, leading her to take on HRBP roles where she learned the skills that still serve her well today. 

The challenge of HR

But the transition from a specialist to a more generalist role did not come without challenges – especially in identifying the value she could bring to her organisation. At least in recruitment, productivity was tangible she explains: “as an HR BP, some of the work we do is less tangible and often hidden, but I looked carefully at progress and measurement. If you can concretely show the company is performing well, and continuously delivering on expectations, HR is adding to the bottom line.”

Rajkumar highlighted other ways HR had a direct influence on businesses: “this is the only function that can put a mirror up to the organisation and have the courage to make itself heard,” she says. “We’re not there to police the business; we’re there to advise and coach.  Of course, we have to manage investigations and compliance topics, but we also need to help our leaders take on responsibility and accountability for their own development and that of their staff.”

Rajkumar believes HR is a unique function in having two objectives – the first is to attract, develop and help promote employees, disciplining them when needed and the second, often undervalued, is to advise, partner and coach. 

An imperative to succeeding at this role is mastering communications skills and a deep understanding of human relationships. A key component of the job involves giving constructive feedback – sometimes critical – to people across all levels, with an emphasis on senior management. 

Being proactive

It strikes Rajkumar that the most senior leaders of organisations are often missing the transparent feedback needed for them to improve: “It is incredulous that in 2024, HR leaders are not proactive enough in opening dialogues with Boards and senior leaders to address the impact of their behaviours. This is what we are here for – to give leaders the tools to introspect.”  But this is also part of the job that appeals to her: “There’s a lot of job satisfaction in coaching a mid- or board-level leader and seeing them operate in a way that makes them more effective and respected in the firm,” she says.

After 24 years in the financial service sector, with the last eight and a half in a French company, Rajkumar thought her next career move would be towards a related sector such as a FinTech organisation. However, a radically different proposal came her way and she moved to Adidas’ headquarters in Herzogenaurach, Germany, taking on the role of Global Head of Human Resources, a post which came with a seat at the board. 

The cultural change could not have been more radical. Not only was this a consumer and retail organisation with a global and recognised brand, but the operating environment in which Rajkumar found herself was also vastly different. There were fewer structures in place to govern people management and compliance compared with the heavily regulated financial sector. 

Rajkumar was immediately faced with three challenges: to address the issues around diversity, to professionalise the HR function while embodying HR’s voice at board level, and to help create a better pipeline of leaders. The company’s CEO understood what good HR was, but wanted support to define it and guardrails to establish it. 

At Adidas she saw a chance to rebuild and introduce more structure, including an overhaul of systems and operating principles so that, for example, HR data would at minimum match that used by the finance department. 

Rajkumar also put in a company strategy board level target with the aim to increase women in leadership to 40% – a target she was already succeeding with two years before the deadline. 

She saw the potential in providing more development and support for leaders within the organisation. Betterment was a key pillar of the People Strategy, encompassing development for all and a renewed sense of career management and self-advancement. 

“The leaders at the top of an organisation need to espouse the values of the Company,” says Rajkumar. “The board has the most visible position, and everyone looks to the cues it gives, setting the tone for the rest of the organisation.” Change does not happen in a day, CEO and board members actions take precedent – then gradually spread across the rest of the business. 

People and culture

“Every company claims their most precious asset is their people,” she says, “but many fail to focus on the engagement of them”– at Adidas she doubled down to re-focus on people and culture. “If you focus on people and get them engaged not only in their roles but across the activities of the company, you’ll have the best performing teams and therefore the most successful organizations.”

After three years living in Germany, Rajkumar has been considering her next move. But while a COO or CEO may be on the cards, she’s adamant that whatever role she chooses to pursue will have to include a significant people element. “I love finding ways to engage, elevate and motivate people,” she says. “It’s rewarding to accompany employees in their professional and personal growth journeys and witness them become the best versions of themselves. There is nothing like seeing how one has contributed to the betterment of a workplace and ultimately impacting countless employee’s day to day.”

Whilst she recognises HR is still viewed as a non- revenue generating function, she believes that HR can also be recognised as a growth function for its role in coaching and developing leaders. 

There is no doubt that, whatever comes next for Rajkumar, her real passion for the people in the places she works will make a huge difference to the organisation she joins.