Executive Overview
Pallavi M R currently serves as Senior Manager, Talent Acquisition at Zepto, a rapidly expanding quick-commerce company headquartered in Bengaluru, Karnataka, India. With over a decade of experience in recruitment and talent management, Pallavi M R specializes in headhunting, candidate relationship management (CRM), sourcing, screening, interviewing, and closing critical hires across technology and business functions. She has been in her current role at Zepto since May 2022 and plays a central part in building and leading teams that support Zepto’s aggressive growth trajectory.
Professional Experience & Role Profile
- Current Position: Senior Manager, Talent Acquisition
Zepto, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India
[LinkedIn Profile](https://www.linkedin.com/in/pallavi-m-r-5a590957) | [Zepto Org Chart](https://theorg.com/org/zeptonow/org-chart/pallavi-m-r)
- Key Responsibilities:
- Designing, implementing, and optimizing talent acquisition strategies across technology, non-technology, and leadership hiring.
- Leading high-impact recruitment drives, onboarding top talent for engineering, product design, backend development, and senior leadership roles.
- Partnering cross-functionally with department heads and leadership to ensure alignment between talent strategy and business growth needs.
- Promoting Zepto’s employer brand through social channels and industry forums, frequently contributing hiring updates and company milestones.
- Mentoring junior talent acquisition team members and guiding structured intern onboarding through programs like Accelerate.
- Handling the full recruitment lifecycle, including negotiation, offer management, and talent mapping in highly competitive markets.
- Core Competencies:
- Technology and Engineering Hiring: Significant focus on senior software engineers, backend, and product design talent within the fast-paced quick commerce and e-commerce sector.
- Leadership Hiring: Proven expertise in acquiring and securing experienced candidates for critical leadership and niche expert roles.
- Process Management: Streamlining recruitment workflows to enhance efficiency and maintain a high success rate in filling roles.
- Employer Branding & Employee Value Proposition (EVP): Active in public forums and LinkedIn to articulate Zepto’s rapid growth, culture, and unique opportunities.
- Previous Experience:
- Prior to Zepto, Pallavi served as Principal Consultant at Antal International, focusing on executive search and strategic talent mapping for multinational clients (as referenced on The Org). She has also been recognized as a Talent Acquisition Leader with exposure to hiring at technology companies including Amazon.
Contributions to Zepto
- Talent Acquisition Leadership
- Successfully drove multiple hiring campaigns for diverse roles, noting particular emphasis on engineering, backend development, and product design.
- Instrumental in onboarding key leaders (e.g., welcoming Atul Soman as Zepto’s first Distinguished Engineer, onboarding Harshit Gupta to lead the Brand Experience Team, and welcoming new Engineering Managers such as Bhagwati Malav to elevate product search and core technology functions).
- Managed significant scale-up initiatives, such as the onboarding of 19 interns under Zepto’s Accelerate program.
- Regularly promotes open roles and contributes to hiring events, leveraging platforms like Instahyre.
- Process & People Focus
- Advocates structured, efficient interviewing, preferring concise processes and in-person leadership touchpoints for better candidate fit and experience, as reflected in her shared best practices.
- Extensive use of skills in Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC), defect tracking, manual testing, SQL, Java, Microsoft Office tools, and documentation relevant for technical hiring and talent assessment.
Zepto Company Context
- Recent Growth:
- Zepto is recognized as one of India’s fastest-growing quick commerce players, recently securing $350 million in domestic funding (Nov 2024). The platform emphasizes rapid grocery and daily essentials delivery, leveraging strong engineering and product design teams.
- The company is actively expanding, with continuous new leadership and engineering hires, as showcased by regular announcements and welcoming posts on LinkedIn.
- Talent Strategy:
- With intense competition for talent in the quick commerce and e-commerce sector, Pallavi M R plays a pivotal role in assembling and scaling high-performance teams to support Zepto’s market expansion.
- Zepto’s human resources and talent acquisition team, including Pallavi M R, is highlighted as being critical to the firm’s ability to attract and retain scarce top talent in a crowded marketplace.
Social and Professional Activity
- Pallavi M R maintains a highly visible presence on professional networks, especially LinkedIn, where she:
- Shares updates on new hires, open roles, and team achievements.
- Actively engages with talent communities and encourages industry professionals to join Zepto’s rapidly expanding teams.
- Offers thought leadership on recruitment best practices, efficient interviewing, and the adoption of agile-oriented hiring methodologies within tech enterprises.
- Key LinkedIn content and posts include:
- Announcements for hiring senior software engineers, engineering managers, and staff-level technical roles.
- Showcasing Zepto’s culture of innovation, employee onboarding success stories, and career advancement opportunities.
Actionable Insights
- Decision-Maker Influence: As Senior Manager, Talent Acquisition, Pallavi M R is a principal point-of-contact for recruitment, vendor relationships in hiring technology, talent pipeline services, and employer branding solutions.
- Points of Engagement:
- Strategic talent services, recruitment automation, employer branding platforms, assessment tools, or leadership search partnerships would align with her mandate.
- Insights about industry best practices, talent analytics, and DE&I-focused solutions are likely to receive engagement.
- Professional Priorities: Focused on sourcing high-caliber talent, scaling recruitment operations, and optimizing processes to meet the demands of a high-growth tech environment in a highly competitive landscape.
Pallavi M R stands out as a results-driven talent acquisition leader with broad domain knowledge in technical and leadership hiring, directly contributing to Zepto’s ongoing expansion. Engagements that bring increased efficiency, talent market intelligence, or innovative tools to Zepto’s hiring ecosystem will be particularly well-aligned with her current responsibilities and strategic focus.