Synchrony’s Rachana Bahadur on Evolving GCC into a High-Value Strategy Hub

Balbir Singh: 00:00

Hi everyone, I am your host Balbeer Singh, CEO of Great Place to Work India. Welcome to another episode of For All Podcast with Great Place to Work India. Today I have the pleasure of getting joined by Rachana Bahadur. Rachana is the SVP and country head of synchrony in India. She has been at the leadership positions across globally, multiple geographies and India being her very recent stint for the last three decades. And with this podcast, I would really want our listeners to get into what creates a great organization, what is going behind the scenes of creating a culture that delivers results, and what is it that the leaders do differently for these organizations. So without much ado, Rachna, why don’t you introduce yourself to our listeners and tell them a bit about yourself before we jump into the uh podcast questions?

Rachana Bahadur: 01:00

Thank you so much, Balbeer, and I’m so looking forward to this podcast. So, Rajna Bahadur, I have been primarily in financial services for the last uh you know 30 years of my working life. It has been uh an amazing journey between geographies. Uh, a lot of time was spent in the US working there after uh my college, and uh I’m also a chartered accountant by trade. And then the last um close to 20 plus years have been in India uh with multinationals, and of course, uh currently uh the country head for synchrony in India. So it’s just been a great journey. I’m looking forward to uh you know talking with you about it, uh the lessons that have been learned across uh the way, and um and uh anything and everything that you know is uh top of mind for you, Balbi, it would be my my pleasure to uh answer those questions. So I’m looking forward to this.

Balbir Singh: 02:05

Great, great. And uh synchrony is number two in India when it comes to best workplaces, and that’s consistently rising up the ranks, and it has been number two for the last two years. So that’s definitely something in your secret sauce that our listeners will you know benefit from. Uh, to get started, Rachana, as you said, you know, you have worked across multiple geographies, but as a leader, there would have been some defining moments in your career. So, what are some of those defining moments that build you where you are today? If you can share some of those with our, you know, our listeners.

Rachana Bahadur: 02:42

Sure. So there are so many, Balbir, uh uh, but there are three that uh were probably pivotal points in my career, and uh I really learned a lot from those three. So uh let me just maybe quickly touch on those three. The first one was it was earlier in my career where I was given an opportunity to sponsor an enterprise um service delivery platform, it was quite uh iconic in those days, it was going to modernize and automate a lot of the operational functions, and I was excited to do it, and I was really keen to just make it right and make it as transformative as it was meant to be. And I think in that uh desire to be perfect, I um we missed on some key milestones, and we actually started regressing on that project. We didn’t, we didn’t meet metrics, uh, we were we were just missing milestones. So I think the lesson on that for me was that um one just needs to fail fast and fail forward or course correct, which I wasn’t doing. Um, it was the harder lesson that made me do that. I remember sitting with senior leaders and telling them that we were trending red, and also remember then them telling me, okay, we heard you, now go fix it. So I think as I look back at that, uh, you know, I think uh it’s important to be comfortable with raising your hand when something is not going right. It’s important to fail fast, as I said, or or course correct. And um, you know, look at your metrics again, look at how you were uh assuming or or making assumptions about that project and what what needed to change uh in order to fix the course. So that was a big lesson. I think as leaders now, I’m I’m very always very insistent that our people feel free to speak up, right? The speak up culture, and and especially if things aren’t going well, they shouldn’t feel intimidated or reserved about it. Maybe that’s what my hesitation was, and I waited so long and I learned my lesson the hard way. So that was one, you know, just having an open culture of learning together, building together, failing together, rising from it together. The other one was um fast forward, uh when when I moved to India in in my previous, uh one of my previous organizations, I was asked to lead a global role, but a very large one. And uh there was just to put it in perspective, there were about nine direct reports of which seven were going to be in the US and in Europe, and two in India. And at first I remember telling them, uh, I just want to clarify, you want me to move now to the US to do this job, right? And they said, no, no, no, you’re going to do this job from India, and you’re a test case for whether this works. So the pressure of that and the responsibility, I was also humbled that uh they were uh taking a uh you know a calculated risk. That pressure was uh led me to really um go into that you know, uh eyes wide open. But my learning from that was that people are really people, they’re not too different, and whether you are in different geographies or cultures, it’s the same. Leadership is leadership, and I also learned the power of a global, you know, um actually appreciating and making the most or maximizing a global operating model, follow the sun. So I think that stayed with me, irrespective of what role one embraces. The world is flat. I think with COVID it got flatter. Uh, and uh and it was important to be bold, be heard, be you, which is by the way, our tagline in synchrony as well. That came into play because you know, when you’re given those opportunities, for me, the biggest learning is, and for everyone that’s listening, take it, right? Take it, run with it, learn from it, uh, because you’re paying, you know, in the future you’ll pay it forward for other such roles. And then I guess the last one would be um a more personal one, where uh again, back in India and one of the organizations, we set up a very large division actually in Mumbai.

Balbir Singh: 07:18

Okay.

Rachana Bahadur: 07:18

And literally seven months into it, we were asked to shut it, shut it down. Um, and people had joined excitedly, they were they had left other careers. So that one was uh personal and it taught me how to lead with empathy, right? And that it’s people are always at the core. Um, you know, us in India, we you know, we we tend to share, we tend to share personal situations. And I remember a lot of our employees coming to me and saying, you know, my mom is third stage cancer, I’m the sole breadwinner, and now I won’t have this role, I’m worried about my future. So that taught all of us leaders, me included, how to lead with empathy, how to place people that came in with such pride into other roles. And that stayed. You know, the you can do many great things, you can move the needle, but you got to do it with care and empathy, and that really does go a long way. So, and we did place most of our our folks, some some opted out. Uh so I think these three, they just stick with me, Balbi, right? It’s like uh three moments that are you know help define uh you know, leading with transparency and trust, and and uh you know, feeling free to raise your hand, leveraging people globally, may the best role go to the best person, and then of course, you know, leading with empathy.

Balbir Singh: 08:49

As you are spearheading Synchrony India, um what is it that you drew you into this role? Why did you you know get excited by this role? And what is your vision for this organization as of today? Because Synchrony, as it stands, was already a great place to work. So, yeah. So it’s a difficult challenge.

Rachana Bahadur: 09:10

No, it’s a great question, Balbir. I mean, I was uh you know, I’ve been unfortunate to be in uh great organizations. Um, what drew me to this role was synchrony itself. Um, you know, the the the caring culture with when it comes to our customers or employees, um, and just just the way even my interview process went, I remember. It was thoughtfully done. It was done on you know uh over a couple of months. I met a lot of very senior leaders who are culture carriers of the firm and you know wanted to make sure that I would be a culture fit. There were technical rounds, and so I I appreciated the fact that this was being done so thoughtfully. But as Synchrony India leader was a culmination of all my sort of life’s work, you know, wrapping it, wrapping it into one role, and it was very exciting. The other piece, to be candid with you, Balbir, was that Synchrony India is truly a microcosm of Synchrony Global, and there’s so much interconnectedness, right? It’s one company with in locations in Asia and in the US, and that was visible. You know, the the way the the way the interviews went and again the the questions that I was asking and the answers I was getting. So I like the fact that Synchrony India is such a key strategic location for the country, the fact that it has all the functions now residing in India. You know, we used to be two decades ago, a contact center, but now to have technology and credit and analytics and performance marketing and finance, and the list goes on, was exciting because the possibilities were tremendous in India. And this strong desire from our CEO down to really help maximize India, it was a draw. It was a really strong draw. So strong cultures, I feel, help very easily make change happen because folks here are there’s so much pride in synchrony globally and in synchrony India. I saw that firsthand as well, even before I joined. And people, you know, our people are just ready to do more, be more challenged, lead more, drive more, own more. So it was very hard to say no to this role. It is my dream job, quite literally. And in terms of vision, I think tying to what I just said, uh, we want to maximize India. We want the art of possible for India. And because all the functions are now in India, there is an opportunity to break down perhaps some of the silos of working and build more trust between divisions and leaders and do more commercially for synchrony from India. So my vision is to you know horizontally drive more for synchrony as a whole, be it more ownership, be it more transformation, um, be it more change, whatever it might be, uh, you know, be a stronger global strategy location for synchrony for the future. And I think we’re poised for that.

Balbir Singh: 12:32

So, as you say, you want to make India a force multiplier when it comes to synchrony. And uh so if you want to make it a force multiplier, that definitely there are some business parameters that you track very personally. I know Synchrony has always been tracking their uh people engagement scores. Uh so you would love to more hear more about that. But what is it that you track as a leader which makes you sure about your strategy and are you in the right direction?

Rachana Bahadur: 13:01

Yeah. So there is no shortcut on that. You have to track it division by division. Um, so for operations, which is our largest uh division in India, you know, we do our own tracking of metrics. I you know, I do believe in a metrics-driven management model. So um, you know, just seeing how we are, the health of the operations organizations by having monthly reviews, and it’s not just getting metrics delivered to you, and you look at it and say, it’s okay. It’s having the conversations. Metrics is a starting point. So whether it’s in operations, whether it’s in technology or the functions, you know, just looking at tracking how we’re doing through metrics is really important. And then some of our large engagements and you know, large budget items, tracking those separately. This year we are specifically focused on engagement. As you know, we have flexibility and choice, and that’s why engagement is really important for us across uh the country. So there’s uh you know specific investments in engagement, our people want engagement, so staying close to that, again, having metrics as a starting point, but having conversations around how that’s going and how we need to change that. Doing a lot, we’ve actually quadrupled our learning and development budget.

Balbir Singh: 14:23

Wow.

Rachana Bahadur: 14:23

Uh, because we felt that there was a need. When I first came in, probably the first four months, or maybe even five or six months, I just spent listening and understanding.

Balbir Singh: 14:34

Yeah.

Rachana Bahadur: 14:34

And and there there emerged this need to do a lot more learning and development at multiple levels, senior most levels all the way down. Um, if I if I dig digress a little bit, I think in the GCCs, our biggest need at the moment is that top seniors senior leadership pipeline that we need to groom. And uh it’s the same for us in synchrony, we want to groom for the for the future. And the last one that um uh is has been a a bit of an epiphany has been that while we are amazing at execution excellence, we the context of the US nuance, and and it’s not just at synchrony, but across the GCCs, it’s missing a little bit, right? Because our employees are not living in the US and they’re not lived experiences of customer, how the customer is, what kind of clients do we have, how do they shop, how do they use credit, um, what are our partners like? So we are uh also invested in creating our own what we call experience center in India in our Hyderabad headquarters, so right here. And that’s where we bring the products, partners, clients through virtual reality, augmented reality to our India employees. Because I feel like once they understand even more the context of what they do beyond the execution excellence, we’ll unleash radical transformation and innovation. So those, you know, those investments uh which we’ve been blessed with in terms of our budget, I track very closely. So um my style is more you know doing the meetings and talking to folks, but using uh pre-read as metrics and then diving into how it’s going, what we need to change, etc.

Balbir Singh: 16:34

You covered a lot of uh things in that, right, from data-driven decision making to uh creating an experience center for your employees. I know because of social media, a lot of that gap is getting covered. A lot of our younger generation knows what are the consumption pattern in the US, how do they consume content, how do they consume services, at least that gap is getting narrowed. But I think that real connect with what how is credit used in US, especially for someone like Synchrone, is very, very important. So, you know, uh Ritna, moving uh ahead from what you were saying, you know, this is something you do as a leader, day-on-day basis, you know, look at the data and decide if you’re moving in the right direction, you know, or decide or decide to change something. But as leaders, we take decisions good, bad, ugly. At the end of the day, it can be any of those, but you one thing you can’t do as a leader is stop taking decisions. You have to keep taking decisions. So share with us one bold decision that you took out of the so many that you would have taken. Yeah one bold decision that you took that fundamentally changed that team’s or that department’s trajectory and how they thought, how they took risks, or how they thought about the business.

Rachana Bahadur: 17:46

I think the beauty about being in India and leading in India is that you have an opportunity to do to take a lot of bold steps because uh we’re continuing to mature. And I’ll give you a recent one uh which we we have lived uh for the last, I’ve lived with with a core team for the last eight, nine months. Uh at Synchrony, the our executive leadership team asked us to do a current state assessment of where we are, and uh, you know, we got the help of uh of a consult consulting um team that was also India based only. So I’ll just take it, take, recap this just for a quick second. Uh our India teams who have primarily focused on execution excellence, and we do it really well, um, with an emergence of uh functional leadership coming in and global leadership coming in, but it’s a journey still. Being asked to take stock of where are you today by division and presenting it to the executive leadership team as well as their management. It was the best gift for us because one, we had to get out of our comfort zone and lead this. Two, we had to not just lead it in India, there were discoveries of the functions as a whole that needed to be done with our global stakeholders, and India needed to have a voice on the table to drive those discussions. And three, the outcomes were amazing, and these were outcomes and revelations that came to us, including things like there are certain areas and functions that India has had for a long time, and oh, we need to really think about how we innovate and transform there, right? So all bets were off, and it was an amazing opportunity for India to demonstrate thought leadership through this exercise. So now, Balbir, we are sitting with an amazing body of work. We have partnered with our global stakeholders who’ve who’ve traditionally made the decisions for us, and we are collectively going to use this book of work to grow and build and maximize India. So, going to the grassroots level, for me personally, it’s been a tremendous learning about leadership gaps, about you know, perhaps processes that could be stitched more together, and most importantly, the emergence of our teams getting out of the someone will tell me what to do. I’ll execute it to the best of my ability, but someone will tell me, I’ll wait for someone to tell me to transform this area. Now it’s like, oh, it’s out there. We’ve we’ve created these opportunities. Now what’s stopping us from going next? So that to me is a tremendously bold uh decision. It was, I won’t say it was just my decision, but coming in, it was something that we we discussed together to say, let’s take stock of where we are. But doing this level of detailed, intensive division by division, subdivision by subdivision assessment is the first. And first time that an India-led initiative has happened. Uh, just to put it in perspective, if I just look at ops, there were 21 subfunctions in ops or divisions that we went deep into. So it’s it’s fairly extensive, and we have a treasure trove of opportunity.

Balbir Singh: 21:23

Yeah. I think synchrony in that way is a great case study for a GCC in India. Because you have been here for more than 20 years. And some of the things that you’re talking about, you know, building the leadership pipeline in India, or the way you collaborate with the headquarters in US and getting involved in some of the critical decisions that are part of the business. I think that’s really important for you know GCC success in India. Um, you spoke about building leadership pipeline and you spoke about you know some of the bold decisions that you took. But when you want to hire a leader in your own team, uh what is it that you always look for? You know, what are those uh what are those traits? You know, could be anything. I think everybody has their own uh pet peeve. Yeah, uh could be anything, but what is it that you look for uh in a leader that you want to hire in your own team?

Rachana Bahadur: 22:19

Yeah, for me, Balbir, the most important thing is, and by the way, it’s not just with leaders, it’s with a lot of folks that we bring in that are going to drive influence and change and be people managers. Uh for me, I look for authenticity and how will they be with their people?

Balbir Singh: 22:42

Yeah.

Rachana Bahadur: 22:42

So, because the skills are, we are a tremendously skilled country. We have, I mean, the GCCs are just booming, skills are there, we have STEM graduates, I, you know, uh, I think we might be number two in STEM graduates. Uh, we have uh um large skills on in the AI front, we have data warehousing folks. We India has it all in terms of skills. But as they as we move up the curve for a leader, you’ve got to take your people along, you know, your vision, you’ve got to make them uh appreciate and understand that you care about their forward as much as you care about yours. Um what I look for is when in those final rounds is how is the leader answering questions around you know key projects and delivery of that or global discussions? You know, are they the ones that want to front everything? Are the leaders going, are they the ones the quietest people in the room and the leaders are driving it? You know, what would be what was their pride factor look like? So some of these are like values-based questions, and it’s hard to come to. But for very bespoke leadership positions, I usually do one or two meals with them.

Balbir Singh: 23:59

Okay.

Rachana Bahadur: 23:60

And that’s when you know you let your guard down and you can uh you can you can you can understand them more. You know, recently we had we made a critical key hire, and it was down to two folks, both incredibly talented. We chose the person um uh the because of what I just laid out, because I thought that that individual will do a better job of bringing their team along and leading with authenticity and empathy. So for me, that’s uh sacrosanct.

Balbir Singh: 24:31

I think authenticity is something that’s coming as a you know one of the common traits when we speak to you know leaders across India, authenticity, attitude, and empathy, you know, some of the common things. And of course, you have your own style of doing a couple of meals when you really get to know the person.

Rachana Bahadur: 24:50

Yeah, I’m I’ve let out on that secret now when they know that I’ve asked for a meal.

Balbir Singh: 24:54

Yeah, yeah. So they know actually they are a baby, so they have to be guarded probably now. Uh but uh good. So uh, you know, Aratna we spoke about uh you know India being a contact center, and also synchrony India being a microcosm of the entire global operations, so this requires a fundamental transformation of the workforce. So, what are some of the things that you’re doing to upscale or keep your workforce ready for the future? Yeah, and because that’s very very critical. We’re talking about AI, we’re talking about anxiety in you know younger work generations. Will I have my job? Will I not have my job? So, what is it that you’re doing at synchrony to stay ahead or at least to stay abreast with what’s happening?

Rachana Bahadur: 25:40

Yeah, and so as I’d mentioned earlier, L and D is a huge focus area for us, Balbir. We’ve quadrupled our L and D budget for India. And I think if I look at it level by level, we need, you know, we’re looking at an investment and an upscale there for each level. But if I start from the top, the India leadership team and the extended India leadership team, we are putting a lot of focus on influencing and communication skills and understanding synchrony as a whole. So, you know, as a it’s it’s really exciting times, but in two weeks, the entire India leadership team is going to the states, and we are first spending a couple of days at West Point doing a trust-building uh training together, including a small physical obstacle course because it’s West Point, you can’t not do that.

Balbir Singh: 26:31

Yeah, yeah.

Rachana Bahadur: 26:32

Uh, that’s important because as we continue to break the silos, you know, we want the technology leader and the credit leader and the ops leader and the risk leader to to share more, collaborate more, ride in our time zone. So I think you know, just doing events like these would help. Where then the SVPs are, you know, spending time with the board as an example. We have a board uh for the first time ever, we are going to meet with the board to talk about our India presence and uh and spend time with the board, including a dinner. So again, giving them exposure to the broader synchrony world. Uh, we’re meeting partners there.

Balbir Singh: 27:14

Okay.

Rachana Bahadur: 27:14

So we’re spending a day meeting different partners so that we better understand um who to service, who to who to who are we working for, the why around what we do, including our leadership. And so these are just, you know, I’m just giving you examples of where uh we’re investing at the top levels. We’ve, you know, we had a lady come from the US that was teaching, uh, you know, including influencing skills, you know, board presentations. Um, and someone brought up a good point in our staff meeting yesterday, the extended one, where we have uh about 70 of us meeting. And he went through the same training because this lady was here for a week, and uh and he said, Rajna, it’s very good that she came from the US and is teaching us because we need to be able to speak to the US as well as we speak to our, you know, our folks in India, because in India there’s a natural comfort, yeah, but we are global teams, the GCCs are all global, yeah, and that’s where we fall short. So at those levels, I think it’s about influencing communication skills. You can have a seat on the table, but you must have a voice. Yeah, someone else should not be your narrative, right? And it’s a very common thing that we find in uh in our India uh offices. And then at the levels below, I think the people managers, you know, with our flexibility and choice, there’s a heavy focus on how you will lead a virtual team, you know, when should you meet? So just being even more deliberate about what the engagement model should look like. What we found is that our newer people managers need tools. They need tools to help them how to run, you know, their their teams better, how to lead and drive teams that are across India now and not just in one location or not next to them. So there’s a lot of focus on people management skills, and then as you mentioned earlier, upskilling for the future. With AI, our synchrony strategy is let’s do it together. And that way the fear gets removed as well. So we just launched SIF GPT globally. Now everybody can touch it, feel it, work on it, get comfortable with it, right? The test cases on AI, we want the user cases, the folks that are thinking of these ideas to work on building it with our tech partners. So then the fear goes away. And and and stressing the fact that it’s an agentic AI move. It’s it’s to it’s to move your your roles up so that you have more time to analyze and do more value add work than you know some of the work that. Could be done, you know, through an agent, or you get more insights and information from the agent take AI experience that can help you do your job better. So those skills are coming into play. We’re doing it together. Gen Z wants that. Gen Z wants to keep learning and growing. And they want to go into companies that do that.

Balbir Singh: 30:22

We spoke about synchronous efforts in building your people managers because they have to manage intergenerational talents. They have Gen X, Gen Z, Millennials, everyone that they have to manage. But you as a leader, you have an organization that is more than 5,600 people in India. How do you manage to connect with your folks? And what’s your secret that makes this a great place to work?

Rachana Bahadur: 30:49

Yeah, well, the that’s a great question. I I think the connection, Balbir, has to be real and it has to be always there and it has to be intentional. That’s like not negotiable. So I think frankly, when I come into our hub, right from coming out of my car, you know, the connection for me starts, whether it are it’s uh security staff, the women who are keeping our restrooms clean, you know, building personal relationships across the board, and um and just being visible. Visible, available, is is really important. They need to see their leader, they need to feel free to ask you a question in the corridor or in the elevator. So it needs to be intentional. The good news is we have a lot of structured options as well that I I love to uh be you know participate in. We we do coffee conversations. So every two weeks I meet with a group of 25 folks, and we just talk about anything that’s on their mind. And we make it fun, we make it interactive, we take pictures, we have coffee together. And it’s amazing how much I get from that, right? There are insights, there you connect dots because this is the voices from our organization, and then they love the fact that they’re being heard. Uh, it’s important to convert that into action.

Balbir Singh: 32:15

Yeah.

Balbir Singh: 32:15

So I also have uh someone who’s taking notes, which and the takeaways are sent to the whole group, and then I work with that person or that team to close on some open items. So uh coffee conversations is one. Um family days is another unique one where we have the extended families of synchrony across all of our India locations meeting. That’s just different and special, and that’s uniquely us, where grandmoms are coming, moms and dads, and we’ve we keep adding to that. We add a recognition element, we have you know corporate social responsibility events happening on those days. Uh it’s just beautiful, right? We we clocked in 12,000 this year, uh, including uh you know uh all our hubs, Kolkata, Delhi, Pune, Bangalore, and Hyderabad. It’s an investment our leaders need to make in this, right? Because we do this on Sundays. Um, and then we do you know a synergy event where where all our managers come together, 2,000 plus managers, and the for me, managers are like multipliers. It’s great to give insights and updates to the uh India leadership and extended leadership teams, but uh a country leader has to go down to the manager level. And I I believe it’s important to give insights about where we are going, what’s important, what the firm’s focus area is, like all that needs to come from me. It’s important. So synergy is a very, it’s probably one of the most important events for me where we’re setting the stage, and this usually happens earlier part of the year, we’re setting the stage with our 2,000 managers about what to focus on. Um, and then I think there’s the the informal stuff is the best, right? I love doing call listening with our frontline. You learn so much from them. In many cases, they are our unsung heroes, but they are the face, they are the face, the face of synchrony to our clients. They are facing our customers. You know, you sit in fraud ops, uh hotline. That’s my one of my favorite areas to sit and and listen to calls, and you see this frontline associate excitedly, you know, having the conversation with um with either a client or even a fraudster. And then at times they will put it on mute and they look at me and say, That’s not a client, it’s a fraudster, Rajna. And I’m like, How did you figure this out? Yeah. And they’re like, wait, let me finish this call, I’ll tell you. Yeah. And then they finish the call and they give me all the reasons on how they caught the fact that there was a fraudster.

Balbir Singh: 35:04

Yeah.

Rachana Bahadur: 35:05

And I’m blown away, right? That learning can only happen when you’re with them. Yeah. Right? So go to where the experience is happening and learn from the grassroots. So spending a lot of time with our grassroots levels, frontline associate folks is very important, I feel, for a leader. Uh, and then you know, just floor walks, uh, those those are my favorite as well. You you go and they’re waiting for you, let the let the teams tell you how they’re doing.

Balbir Singh: 35:34

Yeah.

Rachana Bahadur: 35:35

And then they talk about how they’re how the targets are going, and then you know, you go to the board where they’ve got the target and you say, okay, you met 90% of your metric. Do you want to go after 95%? And if you do, I’m coming back and we’re gonna have a pizza party.

Balbir Singh: 35:49

Yeah.

Rachana Bahadur: 35:49

And rest assured, they remember it, they go for it, they accomplished they also accomplish it, and we go back for the pizza. Yeah, so so that the the engagement with our larger teams, the frontline, the folks that have just joined us is really important.

Balbir Singh: 36:08

Yeah, yeah.

Rachana Bahadur: 36:08

So, and then you know, at the senior most levels, Balbir, you go, I I I’m a huge believer of structured meetings, one-on-ones. They that you know, uh unless something crazy happens, we don’t move them. Even if one of my leaders and I don’t have a topic, we’ll talk about what’s happening in our personal lives. Talk about anything, but we need to connect.

Balbir Singh: 36:30

Yeah.

Rachana Bahadur: 36:31

So at the senior most levels, of course, those formal meetings are really important. So it’s it’s work, but you know, at our levels, uh, 75% of my time is actually spent with people at different levels. That that’s it’s expected. You cannot, there’s no uh, there’s no shortcut.

Balbir Singh: 36:49

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And also, you know, uh the biggest strength and the leaders who do absolutely and amazingly well is are the leaders who listen well. Yes. I think uh being available, being less judgmental when you’re listening, you have to keep your judgment head aside when you’re listening to someone. And uh I think that what that’s what creates confidence in the leader. Yes, and uh whether it’s your call center employees or whether it’s your next in line where you have structured meetings, it’s about how do I constructively help you get better or be a better version of yourself. And that’s not possible if I’m not listening to you. Absolutely, and uh so that’s great insight, uh Rajna. And uh, with that, this will not be complete if I don’t ask you this question, and I ask this to everyone, and it’s important one for me since I’m talking to uh a woman leader. Rajna, you have been instrumental in creating a leadership team and boardroom that has more than 50% representation of women leaders. So tell us how did you make this magic happen? And are they truly representing? Are their voices heard?

Rachana Bahadur: 38:03

We are really proud that close to 60% of our senior vice presidents in India are women. And that and that’s where the the percentages across India at those levels fall short. I think it’s only 18%.

Balbir Singh: 38:19

Okay.

Rachana Bahadur: 38:19

And you know, I mean, India uh women workforce as a whole is about 32%, Balbir. I think it was used to be even lower, 24%. It’s going up. Um well because synchrony India is 52% women, it should naturally mean that the top leaders that are making decisions, it needs to be an inclusive decision-making culture. And we need the same diversity at the top. So it’s uh by the way, all our leaders at the senior levels are, you know, it’s meritocracy that that has got them there. Um, but do they make decisions inclusively? Absolutely, because it’s lived experiences that they bring to the table. So for example, um we have uh, as you know, we have flexibility and choice. But a lot of our folks were working Eastern hours. One of the ideas that came, which came primarily from our women leaders who told us, listen, we are moms, we are daughters, we are daughter-in-laws in Indian cultural context, we do more than our jobs. And it would be better if we worked more India hours. So we introduced extended flexible hours, and that was a direct, you know, byproduct of our women leaders coming to the fore and saying we should look into it. Um, I remember in my previous organization, if I if I may expand diversity even further as a whole, great place to work for all. Uh, we had a leader uh and he made a suggestion on the ATM machines. Uh, and and he said, we should have braille on the ATM machines. We don’t have braille. We never did. It was just a keypad without braille. And he made that suggestion because he has a very close family member who’s visually impaired and used to get frustrated that he can’t withdraw his own money. So there are actually commercial and business impacts to having diverse teams, you know, be it women or or you know, uh or other diverse um uh genres. But it’s really important to have an inclusive leadership team that drives an inclusive culture.

Balbir Singh: 40:41

Yeah.

Balbir Singh: 40:42

I think uh you can only get that perspective from a person who has been there. Yes, or experience that. So, how has the Great Place to Work partnership helped you? Uh you talk about a lot of things, you talk about empathy, you talk about belongingness, you talk about leadership, authenticity. Uh let’s bring all of that together and uh give me a short answer on how this has helped you.

Rachana Bahadur: 41:07

It’s um my gosh, I think it’s a blessing and a gift. Uh, I think maybe three quick things. One, it’s globally, we are a great place to work and subscribe to Great Place to Work, which is great because it’s one firm, one vision, you know, one survey, one trusted survey. So that is great. So uh and uh the objectivity is great. Uh uh, you know, we can we can tweak the questions based on the need of the organization. Uh obviously, our people trust uh the survey this year in India. We had 95% of our teams that participated in the survey. And not just that, 4,000 comments is what we receive, which is free-flow text, which we are which we’re going through. Uh, we value that input. We GPTW tells us what to protect, what to change. It it helps us with our listening culture. Um, I I I and I’ll keep it short, but this is important. When I first came into Synchrony, I was sitting next to a very senior executive leadership team member, and we were talking about GPTW. It was an in-person meeting in in our Stamford office, and I had a PowerPoint on GPTW results for India. And she was an emprising. She was in the website, she was slicing and dicing data as we were discussing things and she was getting great insights, and then she leaned towards me and she said, Rashna, do you have access to this? I said, No, I don’t. She goes, she said, Oh my god, you have to get it. It’s uh it’s a treasure trove of insight that we can leverage to get even better, do better for our people, do better for our firm. That’s when it hit me that if the sponsorship is at the senior most levels, and and that’s how much it’s being used, you know, by our senior most folks, then it’s absolutely embedded in our culture. So I think it’s just a great tool for us to be associated with, learn from, um, know what to continue to do, that we’re doing well, and more importantly, uh where we need to focus on.

Balbir Singh: 43:28

I think it’s really heartening for me to listen to a leader who is so invested. And uh, you’re invested because you have seen that it works and you have seen the results. So uh so very happy for this conversation. But I can’t let you go without doing a quick rapid fire and uh uh one two-word answer or whatever suits you. Uh so let me get started. Sure. Uh first one a book or a podcast that you would recommend to fellow leaders.

Rachana Bahadur: 43:58

I don’t know if many people have read this book. It’s called Radical Candor, where it teaches you, I don’t know if you, it’s Kristen Scotts, the author, where it teaches you to really build personal relationships but give direct feedback. And so if you build a personal relationship, it’s easy to give direct feedback. So radical candor.

Balbir Singh: 44:16

Uh one startup or tech trend that you’re obsessed with.

Rachana Bahadur: 44:19

Okay, that’s cliche. I’ll give you a cliche answer, gen AI.

Balbir Singh: 44:23

How do you wind off after a long day?

Rachana Bahadur: 44:26

By just uh starting to by just doing maybe walking our dog, talking, you know, just uh spending some time with family and no Netflix.

Balbir Singh: 44:35

Okay.

Balbir Singh: 44:36

No Netflix. Netflix? I don’t I barely watch TV. Uh I don’t watch much TV. Um, so yeah, so that would be it. Just just doing like quiet things.

Balbir Singh: 44:47

Okay. If leadership were a movie, what’s your title?

Rachana Bahadur: 44:52

Probably the catalyst or the curious catalyst. Because I I would love to be associated with someone who catalyzes change or or elevation.

Balbir Singh: 45:04

If there’s someone in synchrony that you could swap your jobs with, who would that be?

Rachana Bahadur: 45:10

Okay, this might be an interesting answer for you. I would say our CHRO, DJ Castor. Okay, because for a great place to work, yeah, he’s a gr just a great individual and so so dynamic. And frankly, if you in a great place to work, you have to, your the HR is hand in hand with you in the journey. And so there’s so many difficult conversations that HR has that you know we we we pass on, and I’d love to be in his shoes one day and experience how tough his day can be.

Balbir Singh: 45:43

Since we’re talking about DJ Castro, you are a global CHRO. Finish the sentence for me uh because you want to be in that role.

Rachana Bahadur: 45:53

Uh great place to work is a great place to work is where you are trusted, heard, recognized, and bring your authentic self every day.

Balbir Singh: 46:06

Okay. Great. I think with that we’ll call it the wraps. Uh thank you. Thank you, Rajna, for your candor, for your honesty, and for your authenticity. Really enjoyed this conversation and thank you very much.

Rachana Bahadur: 46:17

Likewise, thank you very much for the opportunity, Balbir.