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Kamal Karanth named new MD of Kelly Services Malaysia

Kamal Karanth has been appointed as managing director of Kelly Services Malaysia replacing Melissa Norman effective June 2014.

Kamal now leads Kelly Malaysia with a combined experience of 20 years including 13 years in the staffing industry with rich international exposure.

Kamal joined Kelly as managing director of Kelly India in 2009; his know-how of recruitment and healthcare industry in sales and profit center management across APAC brought him to Kelly. Kamal executed Kelly’s repositioning strategy in India and grew the professionals business before starting his Malaysian stint with Kelly in May 2014.

Prior to Kelly, Kamal looked after multiple sectors and roles in Randstad (Vedior) in the professionals business. He has been instrumental in setting up new business operations in Malaysia, China, Thailand, Hong Kong and Singapore driving the staffing, search, recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) and human resources (HR) services businesses across these countries. He started as a consultant and grew on a fast-track over a period of slightly over 9 years from Vedior and moved on when Randstad acquired Vedior.

With a strong academic foundation in Bachelors of Microbiology, Kamal started his career in Pharmaceutical Sales with Eli Lilly and then moved onto a Biotech start up called XCyton, in sales again. After seven years of such combined experience, he found his calling in the Staffing Industry in 2001.

Kamal is a founding trustee of the Indian Staffing Federation (ISF) which is the federation of staffing companies in India. ISF has been formed to raise the profile of staffing companies in India and to bring in positive regulation to India’s labor laws.

Kamal has a keen interest in mentoring people and developing talent. His finest achievements in Kelly India have been repositioning Kelly as a premium staffing brand in the last four years. Besides work, he shows keen interest in reading leadership related books; meeting people; watching movies and cricket and is quite disciplined about his health and fitness through playing cricket. He is an avid blogger and writes about workplace dynamics on a weekly basis. His opinions are regularly sought after by leading media.

In his role as the managing director of Kelly Malaysia, Kamal is expected to continue the sustainable advantages that uniquely position the Company and further improve its scale, global reach, broad portfolio, customer satisfaction and more importantly, the depth and talent of its Malaysian team.

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