Puja Patel is Regional Director, HR, at Dalberg, where she leads Human Capital and Staffing for Asia-Pacific. After 20+ years in HR, what she still loves most is the balancing act: weighing what a firm needs to grow against what its people need to thrive, and finding the place where both are served well.

Her path has taken her across industries and continents. Puja started out in BPO and pharmaceuticals in India, then built people practices at a digital media company and later in advertising and communications. Along the way she has worked across India, North America, and South-East Asia, including a stint in Chicago, where she led the people side of many acquisitions, global and local. That work put employee experience, communication, and trust at the center of every transition, helping teams feel informed and supported through change. Before Dalberg, at Publicis Groupe, she led Talent and Culture for a PR and creative agency and designed a pan-India wellness and employee support framework for 3,000+ colleagues.

At Dalberg, Puja brings the same lens to how people are hired, grown, and supported across the region. She is as energized by a good one-to-one conversation as by building the systems around it.

Puja holds a Post Graduate Executive Management Program from SP Jain Institute of Management Studies, a Master of Commerce from Mumbai University, and a Diploma in Human Resource Management from NMIMS.