Diversity Champions

Pranav Prashar, a former short service commissioned officer, had several brush-with-death experiences at the country's borders during his 10 years with the Army. Faced with unexpected challenges, he had to often take split-second decisions, with no room for complacency. On completion of his stint in the armed forces last year, at the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic, Prashar was hired by Amazon. As a soldier, he took innumerable risks to protect the country. In his new avatar as Operations Manager, Buyers Risk Prevention, he is in charge of protecting his consumers from fraud.

Prashar says the agility of the organisation and its ability to quickly embrace change and respond to challenges are similar to the training he got in armed forces. He is among the 100-odd army personnel that the ecommerce major has hired in the last one year. One of them is Major Aparna Gulati, who worked in the Army Service Forces for 12 years prior to joining Amazon last year. During her stint there, she was in charge of supply chain and transportation. "It was my duty to make sure that soldiers got their monthly ration within the defined timeline. The nature of my job at Amazon is similar," she says. Gulati is a Line Haul Manager in the Seller Flex Middle-Mile team and is responsible for planning and executing shipment pick-up operations.

The Covid-19 pandemic led to massive job losses in companies. Amazon India, on the contrary, went on a hiring spree. Not only did it honour all hiring commitments made the previous year, it also created over 70,000 seasonal positions across operations network and customer service. In September last year, it announced 1,00,000 seasonal positions ahead of the festive season. "The pandemic has reinforced the important role Amazon and ecommerce can play in job creation. We believe there is greater access to talent than before and it is a good opportunity to strengthen teams and nurture talent," says Deepti Varma, Director (HR), Amazon India.