Sonila Deshpande is the Founder and Principal Consultant at Meridian, bringing twenty years of trusted HR leadership built across IDFC FIRST Bank, UPL, Wipro, Infosys and ING. She has led enterprise people strategy for organizations spanning 70+ countries, advising boards and executive committees on total rewards, executive compensation, talent management, and M&A integration.

Her expertise spans both building HR functions and scaling them. At Wipro, she built the HR function in South Africa from the ground up, establishing Wipro as a talent brand in the country, well appreciated and recognized by the ICT industry and media. At SLK in the UK, she brought together local and international stakeholders to establish the company’s people function from the ground up, while also setting up benefits infrastructure for its US hires. As Global Head of Total Rewards at UPL, she led compensation and organizational integration across 70 countries following the Arysta acquisition, advising the Nomination & Remuneration Committee on executive pay. Most recently, as Head of Talent Management and Culture at IDFC FIRST Bank, she architected the talent management foundation for a 44,000-person workforce, and served as a board-appointed member of the Bank’s POSH Committee.

She is passionate about global HR practices, how companies and countries, and people of diverse nationalities, can learn from one another to build stronger, more inclusive workplaces.

Through Meridian, she brings this enterprise-grade, cross-border expertise to organizations that need experienced HR leadership, without the cost of a full-time executive hire. She lives with her family in Mumbai, India.