Monjita Sarkar 
Ruma Batheja is an alumna of XLRI Jamshedpur, one of India’s premier HR institutions. Before co-founding Knowledgetics, she built her career at organisations like ExxonMobil, AIMA, and the School of Inspired Leadership — always at the intersection of HR strategy, capability building, and cultural transformation. She was recognised as one of the Most Influential HR Leaders in India in 2017 by CHRO Asia.
On the philosophy that “the best thing about knowledge is it can be shared”
I think this philosophy didn’t come from a single moment — it accumulated slowly across roles. When I was at ExxonMobil, I saw how a Fortune 500 machine runs on information asymmetry. Knowledge hoarded internally, shared selectively. And then I moved to AIMA, which is fundamentally about dissemination — taking management thinking and spreading it. That contrast was clarifying.
But what really cemented it was teaching. I make it a point to learn at least one new thing every day — and when I started teaching HR Analytics, AI, and technology to students, I realised that the act of sharing knowledge doesn’t diminish it. It compounds it. The student asks a question you hadn’t thought of. That’s when I understood — knowledge shared is knowledge multiplied. Knowledgetics is really just that philosophy at organisational scale.
On AI changing HR and non-technical roles at a fundamental level
HR is no longer just the custodian of people processes — AI is forcing it to become the architect of organisational intelligence. The most fundamental shift I see is this: HR used to manage inputs — hiring, training, retention. Now it has to manage readiness — the capacity of the entire workforce to work alongside AI.
Research shows that organisations with high AI readiness demonstrate over twice as fast decision-making, nearly twice the productivity growth, and 30% stronger business resilience. Yet 64% of CHROs cite AI fluency as the most underdeveloped capability in their workforce, and only 22% of employees say they’ve been trained to use AI responsibly. That gap is HR’s problem to solve — and most HR functions are not equipped for it yet. People Matters
For non-technical roles broadly, the change is even more existential. The roles that survive won’t be the ones that resist AI — they’ll be the ones that learn to ask better questions of it. Judgment, context, ethical sense-making — these are human edges that AI amplifies rather than replaces.
On how the consulting + research + analytics combination at Knowledgetics solves what neither can alone
The honest answer is that most consulting projects fail not because the strategy was wrong but because the insight behind it was thin, or the data was disconnected from the recommendation. In the consulting world, it’s easy to get lost behind the data visualisations, the 70-page reports, and the sophisticated strategy roadmaps. What gets lost is the thread between evidence, insight, and action.
At Knowledgetics, we don’t hand off between a research team and a consulting team. The same people who build the insight are accountable for the recommendation. That integration is where the real value lives. Research without consulting is just interesting. Consulting without research is just opinion. Analytics without either is just numbers.
On whether AI and self-serve analytics tools have changed what clients ask
Absolutely — and in a counterintuitive way. When self-serve tools became accessible, I expected clients to ask us for less. What actually happened is they ask for more interpretation and less information. They can pull a dashboard. They can’t always tell you what it means for their next strategic move.
The commodity has shifted from data to judgment. Clients today come to us not saying “we don’t have data” but “we have too much data and we don’t know what to do with it.” That’s a more interesting problem to solve — and frankly a harder one. AI has raised the floor for everyone; it hasn’t replaced the ceiling.
On how SkillUp Lab emerged
It wasn’t planned as a product line. It came directly from client conversations. Before co-founding Knowledgetics, I had played a pivotal role in the people development journey at companies like ExxonMobil and AIMA. So capability building was always part of my instinct.
What happened was this: we’d complete a consulting engagement, deliver the strategy, and then watch it stall because the internal team didn’t have the skills to execute it. The insight was right. The will was there. The capability wasn’t. So we started building that bridge ourselves — not as a charity add-on, but as a core offering. SkillUp Lab is essentially the answer to “what happens after the report.” It’s consulting that doesn’t walk away.
On being future-proof in a non-linear, rapidly changing job market
I was recognised as one of the Most Influential HR Leaders in India in 2017 — but honestly what I’m most proud of is that my own career has never been linear. I’ve moved between corporate HR, academia, entrepreneurship, and public forums. Each transition looked uncertain from the inside.
What kept me steady was a small set of durable skills. First, learning agility — not knowing everything, but being comfortable not knowing and moving fast to fix that. Second, contextual intelligence — the ability to read a room, an industry, a trend, and understand what it means for the human beings inside it, not just the system. Third, communication — the ability to translate complexity into clarity. AI can generate information; it still needs humans who can make that information land.
The young professionals I speak with often ask which technical skill to learn next. My honest answer is: learn to think in systems, learn to ask better questions, and learn to be genuinely curious. She makes it a point to learn at least one new thing every day — that’s not a productivity hack. It’s a survival strategy.
