Executive Summary
Kevin Freitas is one of a small cohort of CHROs globally whose career has been spent almost entirely inside category-defining new-age technology companies. Over two decades he has partnered founders, boards and CEOs at Flipkart, InMobi and Dream Sports — three of India's most iconic digital-era institutions — to build the people architecture that underpins category leadership.
His philosophy is disarmingly simple and relentlessly practised: elevate people and organizations to their fullest potential. In service of that, he has scaled a consumer-internet pioneer through a 10x growth curve, led global HR for a unicorn's sales organization across 10+ countries, and today serves as Chief People Officer of a multi-brand sports-tech & financial-services group.
Kevin's craft is distinguished by an unusually broad foundation — Chartered Accountant, Company Secretary, XLRI gold medallist in Managerial Ethics, and early-career consulting at Hay Group and Hewitt Associates — combined with practitioner depth across talent, rewards, culture, learning and organization design. His work has earned international recognition, including multiple GOLD wins at the Asia Recruitment Awards, the NASSCOM Award for Best Practices in Talent Management, and the Dr. Ram Tarneja Award for thought leadership in Indian Management magazine.
He is widely regarded as one of the most credible voices among the next generation of CHROs emerging from India's new-age economy.
Professional Experience
Chief People Officer for India's leading sports technology group — a multi-brand portfolio spanning Dream11, FanCode, DreamSetGo, Dream Cricket, Dream Horizon, Dream Play, Dream Money, and the Dream Sports Foundation — with an expanding footprint into financial services.
- Strategic people partner to the founders and executive committee; board-facing on talent, culture, organization design and M&A readiness.
- Architect of the enterprise people strategy — talent acquisition, rewards, leadership development, engagement, organization effectiveness and DE&I — across a multi-brand, multi-category operating model.
- Custodian of one of India's most recognized new-age employer brands, building the culture that attracts and retains top category talent.
HR Leader for the global sales organization across 10+ countries, owning generalist teams and specialist functions including Recruitment, Culture, Engagement and Learning. Recognized as a thought leader whose practices won repeated international acclaim.
Selected recognition during tenure: 2017 Asia Recruitment Awards — GOLD (In-House Professional of the Year; Best In-house Team of the Year); 2016 Asia Recruitment Awards — GOLD Best Employer Brand; 2016 NASSCOM Award for Best Practices in Talent Management; 2016 Best Companies to Work — Rank #2 (Media) and Workplace Transformation Case Study Winner; 2015 Dr. Ram Tarneja Award for Best Article in Indian Management Magazine; 2015 HR Tech Leader Award — Asia Pacific HRM Congress; 2015 People Matters Awards for Best in Social Hiring and Best in Employer Branding.
Led Compensation & Benefits, HR Operations & Compliance, HR Programs, Engagement and Performance Management during Flipkart's explosive growth phase.
- Managed a 10x expansion in headcount in two years from close quarters to the founders.
- Partnered founders to build HR infrastructure, team, policies and processes that kept people strategy in lockstep with business velocity.
- Designed scalable rewards, engagement and performance frameworks that became reference points for the Indian internet ecosystem.
Management consultant at the global firm, responsible for project delivery and capability development. Between 2010–2011, founded a recruitment technology firm while continuing with Hay Group on select mandates as a freelance consultant.
Selected Client Engagements:
- India's Largest Cement Company: Senior leadership assessment via Behavioral Event Interviews and Assessment Centers; reward strategy and job evaluation for a new Technical Shared Services Center.
- World's Largest Steel Pipe Manufacturer: Business process reengineering, organization structuring, PMS implementation, talent & succession planning, and leadership assessment across all functions.
- Large Petroleum Refining & Products Company: Designed and implemented a behavioral training framework covering 5,000+ personnel, including senior management programs.
- India's Largest Unlisted Infrastructure & Financial Services Group: Strategic visioning, competency framework, career pathing and succession planning.
- India's Oldest Retail Company: Business improvement diagnostic identifying INR 1 crore+ in savings in a one-week exercise.
- Leading English News Channel: Manpower rationalization yielding $1M in savings.
Advised marquee clients across BFSI, FMCG, infrastructure, technology-enabled services and healthcare on long- and mid-term HR strategy and business planning.
- NYSE-listed IT Company: Designed the Balanced Scorecard (3- and 5-year horizons); created the ESOP for the top executive team.
- Large Indian Private Sector Bank: Implemented Balanced Scorecard, defined executive KPIs, designed a new organization structure and recruitment system, and prepared career plans for 4,000+ associates.
- Large Indian Generics Player: Led annual business planning and national workshops enabling 400+ employees to cascade their scorecards.
- International BPO Services Company: Competency model deployed across Australian, UK and support-services delivery centers.
- Large Automobile Group, India: Manpower planning framework across multiple SBUs.
Employee #5 in the youth vertical of P&G, working on the brand "masti.com" — a formative early-career grounding in segmentation, targeting and consumer promotions at one of the world's most admired FMCG companies.