upGrad names Srikanth Iyengar as CEO – Workforce Development for North America & Europe

upGrad, Asia’s largest higher edtech company, has made another senior appointment to its leadership team – with the hiring of Srikanth Iyengar who joins as the CEO – Workforce Development, effective September 2022.

Srikanth has over 2 decades of work experience spanning North America and Europe. In his previous profiles, he led large multinational businesses across diverse industries like tech services and learning/talent upskilling, consistently driving revenue growth and profitability across a portfolio of 2000 global clients across North America, Europe, and APAC regions. In addition, he is a passionate advocate of diversity and inclusion in the workplace and has championed various initiatives around technology-led business transformation, IT solutions, FMCG, and Skills and Training Development for driving strong brand recognition and financial growth, at large.

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In his current role, Srikanth will build and scale a B2B proposition that upskills experienced technology professionals. With this offering, upGrad is well placed to address a significant and growing technology skills gap in the global marketplace, by delivering a world-class proposition. It will also be responsible for leveraging the company’s unparalleled width of technology curriculums, significantly large alumni community, and proven expertise in delivering tangible learning outcomes. Srikanth’s efforts will be instrumental in setting up a robust ‘Diversity and Inclusion (DnI)’ framework to allow businesses to build a future-ready and productive workforce.

Welcoming Srikanth in his new role, Mayank Kumar, Co-founder & MD, upGrad said, “We continue to strengthen our focus on the global enterprise segment in pursuit of predictable, profitable, and sustainable growth. With Srikanth joining our leadership team, we look at leveraging his sharp business acumen and multi-cultural intellect to further sharpen our client focus, strengthen our operational excellence and global presence, and also enhance sales leadership for continued growth.”

“The results of the Conference Board 2022 global CEO survey show that a shortage of skills, especially technology skills, is one of the biggest short and medium-term challenges facing global corporations today. We are confident that upGrad’s Workforce Development proposition will help our clients address this problem in a scalable and holistic manner. The workforce development approach is critical for businesses to follow as it would not just upskill but also build employees’ resilience to empower organisations and corporates with the tools needed to adapt to the future job markets. Over the last few months, I have developed much respect for upGrad founders and the leadership team as a result of their strategic clarity and relentless, disciplined approach to growth and market leadership. I am really excited to be joining such a high-performing team and to help build a truly special organisation going forward,” concluded Srikanth Iyengar, CEO – Workforce Development.

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With a strong focus on the US, Europe, and select western markets, Srikanth will continue to work from London, United Kingdom. upGrad is an integrated LifeLongLearning tech company that offers online higher education programs to everyone within the age bracket of 18-55 years and boasts a program completion record of 85% through its high engagement curriculum, also backed by a further 80%+ career outcomes-guaranteed performance. In a most recent development, the global edtech player has closed its 6th key acquisition of CY2022 to further strengthen its enterprise (B2B) business portfolio in India and beyond.

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