Alka Mittal becomes first woman CMD of ONGC
05 Jan 2022
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Alka Mittal, director (HR) of Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Limited (ONGC), on Tuesday took over as the chairman and managing director (CMD) of the public sector oil explorer. She has become the first woman to head one of India’s most valuable public sector companies.
The Appointments Committee of the union cabinet has approved her appointment as CMD of ONGC for a period of six months beginning 1 January 2022. Mittal has been serving as director (HR) since 27 November 2018 and is the senior-most director on the board of the energy company.
A post graduate in Economics, MBA (HRM) and Doctorate in Commerce and Business Studies, she joined ONGC as a Graduate Trainee in 1985. She brings with her an extremely rich experience spanning over three and a half decades. Mittal was the first woman to hold the charge of a full-time director in ONGC’s history. She has also been on the board of ONGC Mangalore Petrochemicals Limited (OMPL) as ONGC nominee director since August 2015. She is also on the boards of IIM Tiruchirappalli and NHRDN.
As director (HR), she has been conferred with the Silver Stevie Award in Woman of the Year category at the International Business Awards 2021 for adopting best-in-class HR practices and making ONGC a great place to work. She is an icon for women empowerment and lays special emphasis on retraining and reskilling workforce to be responsive to the changing scenario. Mittal has been the force behind the People’s Connect Initiative to facilitate knowledge sharing from superannuating employees to young professionals of the organisation.
She incorporated sustainability into the talent acquisition process by adopting the practice of Green Recruitment in ONGC through online application process and online interviews, saving time, cost and resources. Mittal reviewed and redesigned the online performance management process of ONGC to align KPIs with the organisation’s vision, mission, values and core principles, enabling more objective target setting and Performance Assessment. She also implemented digitisation of various HR processes, including adjustments of claims, automation of training process, HR workflows, digitization of trust records, corporate promotion process, etc. Under her leadership, Assessment Development Centers for senior level executives were moved to online mode in 2020, safeguarding employee health as well as cost savings of around Rs10.5 crore, says an ONGC release.
Prior to joining as director (HR), Mittal held the post of Chief Skill Development (CSD) of the company. In her capacity as CSD, she streamlined the activities and brought in uniformity in the working of the Skill Development Centers of ONGC. During this period, she has also implemented the National Apprenticeship Promotion Scheme (NAPS) in ONGC engaging more than 5,000 apprentices across all work centers.
Previously, she worked as Head CSR at corporate office and took up major CSR projects across India. Earlier, she has led the HR-ER functions in various capacities across regions including Vadodara, Mumbai, Delhi and Jorhat, and was also the Head of Corporate Communications of ONGC during 2009.
She has a special penchant for training and mentoring, and has been instrumental in training over 11,000 Graduate Trainees (GTs) of ONGC since 2001 on “Corporate Governance” as part of their induction programme.
As a senior HR specialist, Alka Mittal has made rich contributions in various professional forums and bodies. She is an executive committee member of NIPM (National Institute of Personnel Management), and was president of Forum for Women in Public Sector (WIPs) Northern Region till recently and heads the Women Development Forum of ONGC.
