HR Matters | Column. Roshan Thiran

Roshan Thiran is currently the CEO of Leaderonomics, one of the fastest growing consulting firms in Asia. Prior to this role, he was the Director of Global Talent Management with Johnson & Johnson. He was also with the General Electric Company (GE) for more than 12 years, working in a number of roles in the US, in Europe and also more recently in Asia and also with a number of other organizations in the US.

Roshan began his career with GE at GE Investments in Stamford, CT, USA leading the start-up efforts of a new mutual fund business as a Investment Analyst. A year later, he joined GE Capital’s Financial Management Program (FMP) based in Stamford CT in the US. He had a number of Finance assignments with various GE Capital businesses in the Stamford CT region, with GE Global Compression Services in Dallas TX, and with GE International in Shelton, CT. He later joined National Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) at its Rockefeller Center, New York City hub as the News & Sports Analyst where he was responsible for the Financials of 6 news programs, including The Today Show, Dateline, Sunrise and leading the MSNBC cable network start-up efforts.

He was also instrumental in driving a number of key process improvements in the NBC Finance community winning a number of awards for his work and effort at NBC.

From NYC, Roshan moved to London, UK, to take on a cross-functional role as Europe Sourcing Finance Leader for GE Capital Europe focusing on Acquisition Integration efforts and integrating Sourcing operations and processes across various GE Capital businesses in Europe and the US. Roshan was instrumental in growing the GE Capital organization in Europe driving a number of key sourcing and finance initiatives.

Roshan was asked to returned to the US in 1998 to join GE Corporate Initiatives Group (CIG), leading GE’s Y2K efforts across the globe and driving GE Global Sourcing initiatives. The CIG group is GE’s think-tank and internal consulting group based in GE’s Global HQ in Fairfield

In April 1999, Roshan moved to Malaysia to join GE Engines Services Malaysia (GEESM) as CFO and Executive Director. GEESM is GEAE’s biggest aircraft overhaul shop in Asia. Roshan helped grow the shop from a $30million shop to a US$160 million shop. GEESM was a JV between GE and Malaysian Airlines, with 1 local customer. GEESM was transformed to become a global player with 30 customers worldwide.

In May 2001, Roshan took on a leadership development role with GE Crotonville/Corp Learning Services as the Learning Leader, spearheading the training and leadership development efforts for GE in Asia. Roshan drove GE’s customer education program and also was instrumental in developing GE’s new global leadership curriculum.

In June 2003, Roshan took a role as the Director of HR Asia Pacific, overseeing Finance organizations across Asia. He was responsible for all Finance training, organization and staffing issues for the Finance teams in Asia and also driving pipeline programmes that develop talent in GE such as the Financial Mgmt programmes, Corporate Audit Staff programs, leading various Asia and Country Finance councils, and numerous other people development programmes.

In 2007. Roshan moved out of GE and took a role as the Director of Global Talent Management for Johnson & Johnson. He spent time across Asia Pacific owning talent development. He also led J & J’s global emerging leader programme design and implementation and the Global Succession Planning and Performance Management projects. Roshan is a certified coach and is certified in numerous training programs including Myer-Briggs Type indicator, Change Acceleration Process, WorkOut, Strategy Workshops, Finance education and a host of other leadership development training program. Roshan has the distinction of being one of the only people in GE to ever achieve a perfect score evaluation from the training session he has conducted. His infectious and inspirational teaching style and unorthodox learning methodologies are well-received across various geographies and people groups from Europe, the US, Middle East and across Asia.