Movers and Shakers

Magdalene Tai has been appointed to the position of director of human resources at Raffles The Plaza and swissôtel The Stamford. Drawing upon a decade of senior HR experience in the hospitality industry, Tai will be responsible for the organisational development of the hotels' combined staff strength of 1,600. Tai took on this challenge of managing a larger workforce as she enjoys the vibrancy of working with people. Tai says, "HR is a strategic department that contributes to and has an impact on the entire organisation, thus it is pleasure to have a hand in the recruitment, retention and training strategies of both hotels."

Rajesh Deshpande is the new Asia Pacific resources manager of AMEC, a global engineering and asset management company. In his new role, Deshpande will be in charge of setting up the regional staff competency centre to support AMEC's worldwide offices with the company's Asian talent. Deshpande holds over 15 years of human resources experience in various industries such as IT, engineering and oil and gas. Prior to joining AMEC, Deshpande was an regional HR manager at Satyam Computers and Datamatics, both global IT corporations, for six years in each firm.

Brigit Alicia Bong has joined Ranbaxy Laboratories, an international pharmaceutical company, as the new resources manager for the Asia Pacific offices. Bong joins Ranbaxy after eight years at ESEC, a Swiss semiconductor manufacturer, as an regional HR manager. Commenting on her appointment Bong says, "After experiencing HR in the semiconductor and advertising industries, I treat this shift to Ranbaxy as an exciting challenge into an uncharted territory. At Ranbaxy, I can help to positively influence the global HR strategy and encourage employee diversity in the workplace."

Lisa Tay is one of Hewlett-Packard's most recent hires and her new role is regional workforce development & organisational effectiveness manager. Prior to her appointment, Tay spent four years in General Electric where she was human resources manager. Tay brings over seven years of HR knowledge to the IT giant's table and she will draw upon previous experiences in the high-tech, chemical and government industries when facing future challenges. In her new position, Tay's key responsibilities comprise of aligning human capital plans to business needs and directing the workforce capabilities of HP technology solutions' units in the Asia Pacific region including Japan.