Shivalika Raje on Culture, Capability, and Responsibility

People leadership becomes visible when values are translated into systems, and intent is carried through to everyday practice. Over a sustained career, this requires consistency of judgment, credibility with the workforce, and the ability to hold people, purpose, and performance together without treating them as trade-offs. Shivalika Raje’s leadership reflects this disciplined approach.

As Head – People Practices and Chief Sustainability Officer at Sudarshan Chemical Industries Ltd, Shivalika Raje has spent over three decades working at the intersection of human systems and organizational outcomes. In her acceptance remarks, she spoke of receiving individual recognition for the first time in her professional life, an observation that reveals how her work has consistently been oriented toward enabling institutions and teams rather than personal visibility.

A defining principle in Shivalika’s leadership is seva or service. This is not articulated as a philosophy, but as a practical orientation to work. Her view is straightforward: when people operate with a genuine intent to serve, the quality of effort improves, relationships strengthen, and outcomes follow. Across a 30-year career in Human Resources, this orientation has shaped how she approaches both capability-building and culture.

She described her practice through a “two-spokes” model: science and art. The science comprises the formal disciplines of HR, including coaching, training, systems, and frameworks. The art lies in application: knowing when, how, and for whom these tools should be used, while keeping the larger good of individuals and the organization in view. This balance has guided her work across roles and contexts, and underpins her belief that people practices must be rigorous without becoming mechanical. It is an approach that aligns closely with a culture of management coaching, where judgment and context matter as much as process.

At Sudarshan Chemical Industries, this leadership has translated into outcomes that are concrete and measurable. Shivalika highlighted two areas of impact. The first is sustained community engagement through CSR initiatives across Pune and Maharashtra; work that reflects the company’s commitment beyond its factory gates. The second is a landmark shift in workforce composition. Sudarshan has become the first chemical company in Asia to deploy women on the shop floor across all three shifts. Today, women constitute approximately 40 percent of the shop-floor workforce.

Achieving this milestone required redesigning systems, ensuring safety and infrastructure readiness, building managerial confidence, and preparing the organization culturally. The result is a workforce model that challenges long-held assumptions in a traditionally male-dominated industry. This work exemplifies cultural transformation training in action, where change is driven through operational redesign rather than intent statements.

Shivalika also acknowledged the role of coaching in her own leadership journey, crediting sustained developmental conversations with helping her remain anchored and effective. Her openness to being coached reflects a leadership stance that acknowledges the ongoing work for self-development. This mindset is foundational to effective corporate coaching programs and management development programs, where leaders model the behaviors they seek to institutionalize.

Shivalika’s recognition as People Leader of the Year reflects her role in architecting Sudarshan’s global cultural transformation and aligning people practices and sustainability with long-term business strategy. More importantly, it reflects leadership that is steady, humane, operationally grounded, and builds institutions where people can contribute fully and responsibly over time.