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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
PNB partners Kiwi to launch credit-enabled UPI for users
Targets 180 million customers; RuPay card offers 0.5 per cent to 1.5 per cent cashback
MUMBAI: Swipe, tap, or scan credit is quietly slipping into the rhythm of everyday payments, and Punjab National Bank wants in on the action. The state-run lender has partnered with Kiwi to roll out credit-enabled UPI payments for its 180 million customers, marking a significant push to blend traditional banking with India’s fast-evolving digital payments ecosystem.
At the centre of the collaboration is the launch of the PNB Kiwi Credit Card on the RuPay network. The card is designed with a digital-first approach, offering fully online onboarding and seamless integration with UPI, allowing users to transact via scan-and-pay while accessing credit.
The offering also brings in a rewards layer, with cashback ranging from 0.5 per cent to 1.5 per cent on online transactions, positioning the product as both a convenience play and a spending incentive.
The move comes as UPI continues to dominate India’s digital payments landscape, increasingly blurring the lines between debit-led transactions and credit access. For PNB, which operates over 10,000 branches around 60 per cent in semi-urban and rural areas, the partnership signals a targeted effort to extend formal credit to segments that have traditionally remained underserved.
The collaboration also reflects a broader industry shift, where banks and fintech platforms are converging to embed credit directly into payment flows, reducing friction while expanding access.
With RuPay credit cards gaining traction and UPI evolving beyond peer-to-peer transfers, the PNB–Kiwi tie-up positions both players at the intersection of scale, accessibility, and the next phase of digital finance in India.
