Malvika Jhangiani
CHRO at Faro
FARO Technologies
Episode 95
Future of HR: Embrace Discomfort, Become Business Bilingual for Growth.
Current chapter: Built by People podcast features insights from world's top HR leaders
Built By PeopleJuly 23, 2025 · 13:09
Thesis
“Successful HR leadership in a dynamic, global environment demands agility, a willingness to embrace discomfort and 'scrappy' innovation, and a profound 'bilingual' understanding of both HR and core business functions to unlock human potential and drive growth.”
Show notes
Malvika Jhangiani has worked across four continents, integrated 17+ acquisitions at Monsanto, and joined a PE-backed company as CHRO right as COVID shut the world down. She calls it a career defined by discomfort — and she's convinced that's the point.
Her Monsanto chapter is worth the listen alone. Sixty-five percent of the company's US commercial business ran through six strategic accounts. She spearheaded "Project Panther" — a covert restructuring of the entire go-to-market model that replaced fragmented, siloed sales teams with unified account managers for strategic clients. The restructuring was executed quietly, announced decisively, and the outcome defied expectations: sales went up. Then she left one of the world's largest agricultural companies for a scrappy PE-backed firm with no 401k plan, a fifth the resources, and five times the growth ambitions. Her verdict: "Scrappy is sometimes your superpower."
She closes with her three B's philosophy — the framework she's used to navigate 25 years of global HR leadership: Big Bets (on yourself and others), Bilingual (fluent in HR and in the business), and Breathe (because calmness is a leadership competency). The advice is simple. The application is the work.
- The covert Monsanto restructuring that changed the company's go-to-market and grew sales in the process
- What moving from a Fortune 500 to a PE-backed startup taught her about resourcefulness as a CHRO
- The reverse mentoring program she built to embed digital fluency across senior executives
- Why "no one owns data, everyone owns data" — and how she operationalized that across a global enterprise
- The Three B's framework: Big Bets, Bilingual, and Breathe — and what each one means in practice
This episode is brought to you by Previ — an employer network that saves employees thousands on the necessities they already pay for, at no cost to the company.
What you'll take away
- 1Growth often happens when you step outside your comfort zone; embrace discomfort and assert leadership.
- 2In hyper-growth or resource-constrained environments, 'scrappy' approaches coupled with strategy can be a powerful driver of success.
- 3HR professionals must be 'bilingual,' deeply understanding their HR domain while also becoming students of the business and technology.
- 4Take 'big bets' on yourself and others, paying forward mentorship and support to pull others along.
- 5In a fast-paced world, remember to pause and 'breathe' to maintain calmness and clarity as a leader.
What most organizations get wrong
- •Flipping traditional mentorship: Senior executives can learn valuable digital skills and perspectives through reverse mentoring from young professionals.
- •Successful restructuring: Restructuring a business, even massively, can lead to sales growth rather than a loss of focus, with the right covert planning and communication.
- •Scrappy as superpower: Moving from a process-heavy corporate environment to a resource-lean, PE-backed firm, 'scrappy' becomes an asset for hyper-growth.
In Malvika's words
“Quickly I learned how some of my best growth happened when I was put outside my comfort zone, right?”
This highlights the guest's belief that personal and professional growth often stems from challenging situations.
“So my learning was sometimes you delve deep and you've got to learn how to toggle up and down in an organization to truly deliver value.”
This quote emphasizes the dynamic and flexible leadership style required in various organizational contexts.
“Scrappy is sometimes your superpower, right?”
This phrase encapsulates the guest's view on leveraging limited resources and agile thinking in challenging situations.
“We said no one owns data, no one owns insights, It is owned by us as an enterprise.”
This illustrates a powerful approach to data governance and collaborative insight generation within an organization.
“Most organizations have senior leaders mentoring young talent. We flipped it and we were like, hey, there's an opportunity for our senior executives to go through this reverse mentoring experience and learn from them.”
This quote showcases a contrarian and innovative approach to professional development and digital fluency.
“He said, Malvika, you need to be a student of the business. And so everyone, every HR professional obviously needs to know their domain, but also get bilingual. Learn technology, learn the business, and you will be a much richer professional if you are bilingual.”
This provides actionable career advice for HR professionals to expand their impact and value by understanding broader business contexts.
The problems this episode addresses
- •Integrating a high volume of acquisitions (e.g., 17-18) post-merger without clear integration strategies, leading to fractured business units and sub-optimal value capture.
- •Restructuring existing business models and go-to-market strategies (e.g., shifting from siloed sales to single account managers for strategic clients) to enhance customer experience and drive growth, requiring significant internal buy-in and stealth execution.
- •Rapidly scaling a company fivefold in a PE-backed environment with limited resources, especially during unexpected crises like COVID, demanding swift establishment of leadership teams and robust HR practices (e.g., designing 401k plans from scratch).
- •Embedding digital fluency and a data-driven mindset across a large, established organization, breaking down data silos, and fostering innovation through internal funding and cross-functional collaboration.
- •Navigating cultural complexities and stereotypes in global projects, particularly when younger professionals or women are in leadership or advisory roles, requiring strong professional boundary setting and cultural understanding.
In this episode
Built by People podcast features insights from world's top HR leaders
Built by People
Dave Gentry started his career in consulting with Andersen and Ernst Young
The Journey of Working Across Cultures
65% of Monsanto's commercial business went through 6 strategic accounts
Punishment for Corporate Inclusion
How did you adapt your leadership style to drive growth during challenging period
Leading HR at a PE-backed organization during COVID
At Monsanto, we wanted to embed digital fluency across the organization
How to Scale Up the Digital Economy at Monsanto
Navika shares her advice on leadership on Built by People podcast
Malvika's Last Words
Topics covered
Organizations and entities mentioned
Full transcript
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