VANGUARD | Kashif Halim Rajpoot

Vanguard features Kashif Halim Rajpoot a senior CHRO and AI-driven HR transformation leader with over two decades of experience across Pakistan MENAT and Central Asia in fintech media and telecom.

By Imran Malik | People & Business Desk | MediaBites.com.pk

VANGUARD
MediaBites celebrates Pakistan’s most exceptional professionals

Some professionals manage HR. Kashif Halim Rajpoot transforms it.

With over two decades of progressive leadership across Pakistan, Southeast Asia, and the MENAT region, Kashif has built people functions from scratch, scaled organizations through technology, and delivered results that most HR leaders would consider exceptional by any global standard.

He is currently Senior Vice President Global Human Resources at Walee, the diversified technology, media, and financial services group operating across seven countries, five business verticals, and 650 plus employees, reporting directly to the Group CEO and Board.

What He Has Built at Walee

At Walee, Kashif established the Group HR function from the ground up, architecting people strategy, governance, and talent operations across five greenfield businesses simultaneously, including FinTech, Digital Media through South Era Network, Blockchain through WireFluid, Professional Sports through RawalpindiZ, and Guest Protocol Services.

The impact has been measurable and significant. He introduced AI-enabled recruitment and HR virtual assistants, cutting screening time by 60 percent and automating 70 percent of HR operations. He scaled HR infrastructure for five new businesses from concept to commercial launch within 90 days. He reduced time-to-hire by 30 percent while onboarding over 100 professionals across Pakistan, MENAT, and Central Asia.

A Career Built Across the Industry’s Most Demanding Environments

Before Walee, Kashif served as Head of People and Culture at Paymob, the fintech infrastructure platform operating across Pakistan, Africa, and the Middle East, where he scaled the organization from zero to 250-plus employees, led the global rollout of SAP SuccessFactors, and built the executive leadership team through strategic C-suite hiring.

His 17 years at Telenor Pakistan represent one of the most comprehensive HR leadership journeys in Pakistan’s corporate history. He served as Lead HR Business Partner for Technology, Digital, and Finance Divisions, supporting 750-plus employees and partnering directly with the Deputy CEO, CTO, and CFO. He led nationwide recruitment, filling 850+ critical roles annually through gamified assessments and chatbot-enabled recruiting. He served as the HR and Organizational Change Management Area Lead for Telenor’s Asian operations, based in Kuala Lumpur, covering Malaysia, Thailand, Bangladesh, and Pakistan simultaneously.

One of his most significant achievements was leading a large-scale retrenchment project affecting 350 employees, delivering PKR 160 million in monthly OPEX savings through precision severance design, redeployment planning, and zero-disruption governance.

He also earned the Best Employer Award 2018-19 for building Telenor’s employer brand as the destination of choice for Pakistan’s top talent.

The Education Foundation

Kashif’s academic credentials reflect the combination of technology and business thinking that defines his career.

Master of Information Technology, University of South Australia — a globally recognized program that gave him the technical foundation for his data-driven approach to HR transformation.

Certificate Program in Business Management, Lahore University of Management Sciences — Pakistan’s most prestigious business institution, adding the strategic business leadership layer to his technology background.

The AI-First HR Leader Pakistan Needs

What distinguishes Kashif from the generation of HR leaders who preceded him is his genuine and demonstrated mastery of artificial intelligence, data science, predictive analytics, and digital HR transformation as operational tools rather than theoretical concepts.

Statistical modelling. Predictive analytics. Python. Tableau. Power BI. Workday HRIS. SAP SuccessFactors. Gamified assessments. Chatbot-enabled recruiting. These are not resume keywords for Kashif Halim Rajpoot. They are the tools he has used to build HR functions that actually work at scale in some of Pakistan’s most complex and fast-growing organizations.

As Pakistan’s corporate sector accelerates into an AI-enabled future, professionals who understand both the human and the technological dimensions of organizational design are the rarest and most valuable commodity in the market.

Kashif Halim Rajpoot is one of them.

— Imran Malik | People and Business Desk | MediaBites.com.pk | Sharjahnews.ae