AESC Executive Research Forum - September 2022

Kulsoom Gul is Managing Director for BlueSteps. Her responsibilities encompass strategy, production, product development and management, and P&L performance of the business. Kulsoom is a strategic initiatives and product executive with 15+ years of experience who has led multi-million-dollar rollouts for Amazon, Chubb, Deutsche Bank and Citigroup. She has vast experience as a digital product manager with direct experience building B2C and B2B platforms.

Prior to Joining AESC, Kulsoom served as the VP of Product for Chubb’s Small Business division where she owned a disruptor Broker/Agent Marketplace Portal and Insured Client Center for agents to purchase small commercial business insurance. Prior to Chubb, Kulsoom worked in a product and business development role at Amazon to create and execute a 3-5-year roadmap plan and manage the launch of a new publishing platform for Amazon’s Kindle business. Kulsoom has extensive experience working in the financial sector, having worked in the Capital Markets divisions at both Deutsche Bank and Citigroup.

Vrinda is a seasoned business leader, with experience in both mature organizations as well as start ups, and has a track record in building, scaling and growing functions and companies. She has a breadth of expertise across the organizational spectrum including strategy, people/talent, operations, and technology; and drives strategy with a strong bend towards execution/operationalization. Vrinda has consistently demonstrated the keen ability to convert strategy into operational reality, aligning leadership at the highest levels, processes, and technology to not only fit strategy but deliver on goals and metrics. Given her unique ability to balance the creative and the tactical, she earned herself the title of a leader that is both the tireless cheerleader and the drill-sergeant, someone who easily drums up the out-of-the-box ideas but does so with an execution lens which helps efficiently bring ideas to life.

In addition to operations, process and technology - throughout her career, Vrinda has been deeply passionate about the 'people' side of business especially in areas of leadership development, talent strategy and organizational change. She has worked closely at the C-Suite and Board level as an advisor and a strategic partner to leaders helping create, build and develop their organizations.

Sarah began her career as a management consultant with Deloitte, where she worked with a range of public sector, non-profit and technology companies re-engineering processes and improving operational efficiencies. She was awarded several client service awards for her work ethic, collaborative approach, and positive attitude. She then lead a large project with a global tech firm where she hired and trained across continents while collaborating with local HR representatives to recognize local nuances.

Following the completion of her MBA, she spent the next 15 years as an entrepreneur; hiring, training and developing staff and team members, and developing and growing her own businesses. She has spent 20 years serving on a non-profit board supporting social services, arts and culture, education, provision of medical services, physical fitness and amateur sport in North-Eastern Ontario.

Commencing as a researcher in 2012, Vishnu has undertaken a wide variety of local and international search engagements across the public and private sectors, in partnership with our consultants.
Blessed with a natural curiosity and a keen interest in people’s drive to achieve, he’s always on the lookout for new ways to find talented candidates for our clients.

Vishnu has lived, studied and worked in seven countries, an experience that’s given him an invaluable global perspective. His previous roles have included eight years with a global banking and financial services business, shaping its recruitment and executive search strategies while broadening his capabilities across human resources, business development and operations management.