Divya Divakaran

I began my career 20 years ago after graduating with a bachelor's in Commerce. Though I wanted to work in finance, a personality development test during campus recruitment suggested I would shine better in HR, so I started in an HR Shared Service Center as a recruiter. I gained extensive experience across multiple HR functions including payroll, benefits, shares administration, employee relations, and HR business partnership at Scope. I then moved to Thomson Reuters in their Healthcare and Life Sciences Division, where I was part of HR Business Partnership and HR Operations during the merger of Thomson Corporation and Reuters Media. At Harlan Clark, a PE-backed organization doing multiple acquisitions, I joined as the second employee to build their Global Development Center in India while integrating the Global Scholar acquisition. I was responsible for org design, workforce planning, talent acquisition, and talent development, growing the team from 2 employees to over 360. After moving to the U.S., I volunteered and freelanced as an advisor to scaling startups, conducting HR assessments and helping them build people infrastructure. Once I received my EAD card, I joined Ferguson's Shared Service Center before moving to EVS, where I spent 5 years. At EVS, a 40-year-old organization with no HR department and about 70 employees, I built HR from inception and scaled the company to nearly 300 employees with global expansion. I implemented Workday, built job architecture, talent architecture, compensation architecture, and total rewards programs. As part of the executive leadership team and advisor to the CEO, I drove org design changes that reduced cost of employee to revenue from 83% to 45% without reducing headcount, significantly increasing profitability. I recently left to form Leadership Evolution, my own fractional advisory organization, where I work with PE-backed and founder-led high-growth scaling organizations that need strategic HR leadership but cannot afford or don't need a full-time CPO. I conduct organizational diagnostic assessments to identify what's needed for growth and scaling.