upGrad has elevated Koell Hemdev to General Counsel and Chief Human Resources Officer, bringing the company’s legal and people functions under a single leadership mandate. In the expanded role, Hemdev will lead upGrad’s legal and HR agenda while also driving a new initiative to build a community for the company’s alumni and prospective learners.
Hemdev joined upGrad in 2017 and has led the company’s legal function for the last nine years, most recently as President, Legal and Secretarial. She built the legal function from the ground up and supported the business through several complex, high-growth phases. With the expanded mandate, she now owns the HR charter alongside legal, placing governance and people strategy under one team.
“As upGrad has grown, so has the need for functions that used to operate independently to speak with one voice. Taking on HR alongside General Counsel is a natural extension of that. It means our people strategy and our governance strategy are now built by the same team, from the same playbook. As we enter this next phase, my focus will be on strengthening our people, culture and governance foundations to enable sustainable scale, while building a stronger and more connected community of alumni and prospective learners,” said Koell Hemdev, General Counsel and Chief Human Resources Officer, upGrad.
upGrad describes itself as Asia’s largest integrated skilling and workforce development company. The edtech firm, co-founded by Ronnie Screwvala, has moved through rapid expansion, funding rounds, and portfolio diversification across higher education, enterprise skilling, and study-abroad services in recent years.
Combining the general counsel and CHRO mandates in one leader is an uncommon structure in Indian companies, where legal and HR usually report separately to the CEO. The consolidation ties upGrad’s governance and people agendas together as the company works toward what Hemdev described as sustainable scale.
Her new remit also extends beyond the two functions into community building, with a stated focus on connecting upGrad’s alumni and prospective learners. The company has not disclosed changes to its wider leadership structure alongside the elevation.
