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Vodafone bets big on AI with veteran’s promotion to digital HR chief
LONDON: Vodafone has elevated Purwa Rathor to global senior human resources product manager for digital and artificial intelligence, promoting a 17-year company veteran as the telecoms giant accelerates its push into AI-powered workplace solutions.
Rathor, who joined Vodafone in 2008, will spearhead the rollout of AI-driven HR technologies including Microsoft Copilot and experimental “agentic AI” assistants designed to handle everything from interview scheduling to maternity queries. The promotion marks Vodafone’s latest attempt to harness artificial intelligence for competitive advantage in an industry grappling with mounting cost pressures.
Her track record suggests the appointment is more than corporate window-dressing. As global candidate experience manager, Rathor delivered a 50 per cent reduction in cost-per-hire and time-per-hire, while boosting application rates by 80 per cent across 28 countries. She also improved diversity hiring by 34 per cent and lifted candidate satisfaction scores by 58 points.
The promotion comes as traditional telecoms operators face intensifying competition from digital-native rivals and pressure to slash operational costs. Vodafone’s bet on AI-powered HR automation reflects broader industry efforts to extract efficiency gains from back-office functions.
Rathor’s career spans from financial services training roles at ICICI Prudential and India Infoline to nearly two decades architecting Vodafone’s talent acquisition systems. Her experience navigating complex regulatory environments—including negotiations with German and Spanish works councils—may prove crucial as AI deployment raises fresh concerns about worker surveillance and algorithmic bias.
Whether Vodafone’s AI ambitions translate into sustainable cost savings or merely create new technological dependencies remains an open question. For now, the company appears willing to gamble on internal promotion over external expertise as it races to digitise its workforce operations.
eNews
Paisabazaar launches Credit Premier League 2.0
Nationwide campaign rewards highest credit scores with Rs 1 lakh top prize.
MUMBAI: When credit scores become a national league, even your CIBIL report starts feeling like it’s playing in the IPL and Paisabazaar has just kicked off the second season. Paisabazaar, India’s leading marketplace for financial products and the country’s largest free credit score platform, has announced the return of the Credit Premier League (CPL) 2.0, a fun, nationwide initiative to recognise and reward individuals with the highest credit scores.
Building on the success of the first edition, CPL 2.0 introduces higher rewards and broader participation. The individual(s) with the highest credit score in the country will win Rs 1 lakh, while state champions will each receive Rs 10,000. Additionally, all participants from the winning state, the one with the highest average credit score will also be rewarded.
All winnings will be credited directly to winners’ PB Wallet, allowing them to pay credit card bills, recharge mobiles, or settle utility bills seamlessly on the Paisabazaar platform.
Paisabazaar CEO Santosh Agarwal said the campaign aims to make credit awareness more engaging and mainstream. “With CPL, we are bringing together engagement, gamification and rewards to make conversations around credit scores more mainstream,” he noted. “Our focus remains on building a financially aware and credit-healthy Bharat.”
The first edition of CPL saw over 5.5 million participants, with the highest individual score touching 861. Delhi recorded the highest average credit score of 746.
Consumers can participate simply by checking their free credit score on the Paisabazaar platform or app. The CPL leaderboard and rankings will be available exclusively on the Paisabazaar App.
In a country where financial dreams are serious business, Paisabazaar has found a smart way to turn credit scores into an exciting game – because when your financial health gets rewarded, everyone wants to play.
