Speaking
The opening session sets the level for everything after it.
He is booked into three kinds of room: an industry summit, an academic conference, and a university lecture hall. What follows is what he actually did in each of them, and what an organiser is commissioning when they book one.
Formats
Five things an organiser can book.
Each one has an instance behind it. Nothing on this list is a format he is willing to try.
- A masterclass: a working session for practitioners, built around one decision the audience is already facing. Most recently at the HRxAI Expo & Summit 2025.
- A panel seat: contributing alongside serving chief HR officers and chief executives rather than presenting at them.
- Chairing a session: running the room and giving each presenter feedback on their work. Two sessions at the Human Resources International Conference, IIM Bangalore.
- An invited lecture: a single talk to a student or faculty audience, most recently at BITS Pilani’s Goa campus.
- A conference paper: work argued in front of the people best placed to take it apart, at the Academy of Management, EURAM and EGOS.
On the main stage
The talk, and the argument it made.
Booked for the masterclass at an international summit on HR and artificial intelligence, in front of a room of chief executives and heads of HR.
His argument was not that the technology is coming. It was that the conversation has to move, in his words, “from AI anxiety to AI utility”, and that the useful work is specific: “minimizing Type I hiring errors and enabling skill-focused hiring for better workforce decisions.”
“This transformation is not just about tech,” he wrote afterwards. “It is about reimagining HR with human values at the core.” He ended his own account of the day on a line worth putting in front of any board: “HR x AI is not a possibility, it is our present.”
How AI Can Impact the Future of Talent Acquisition
HRxAI Expo & Summit 2025 · Radisson Blu, Noida
21 March 2025
In the room: chief executives, chief HR officers and senior business professionals
Chairing
Trusted to run the room, not just to speak in it.
At the sixth Human Resources International Conference, hosted by the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore, he chaired two sessions: running the discussion and giving each presenter feedback on their work.
- Human Resources International Conference: the sixth edition, at IIM Bangalore, April 2026.
- Two sessions chaired: across healthcare worker well-being, queer identity and resilience, toxic leadership and innovation, living wages as a strategic lever, and veterans’ career transitions.
- He presented at it as well: a paper on rethinking HR in entrepreneurial ventures, written with Pawan Budhwar.
Invited lectures
The institution that trained him asked him back.
The Economics and Finance Department at BITS Pilani’s K K Birla Goa Campus (where he took his own degree) invited him to speak to the students now sitting where he once sat.
- Career Pathways, Management Education and Strategic Transitions Beyond Engineering: the talk, to a full tiered lecture hall, February 2026.
- What it ran on: a three-dip model of building resilience, and career anchors: how to tell a genuine direction from external validation.
- Also on the visit: a conversation with the campus Director on institutionalization and the long-term architecture of excellence.
Next step
What is the session meant to do?
The event, who is in the audience, and what you need them thinking about on the way out. The format follows from that, and so does whether a session is the right instrument at all.