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Welcome to Season Eleven of Conversations in Cleantech!
This season, we're exploring the talent equation, examining the people, skills, and leadership required to accelerate the energy transition. From workforce strategy and culture, to talent development and organisational growth, we'll explore what it really takes to build the teams driving the sector forward.
In this episode, Jenny Gladman is joined by Sandhya Mutreja, Global Head (VP) of People at Yondr Group, whose career has taken her from software development to leading people and transformation across technology, financial services, and the rapidly growing data centre industry.
Sandhya began her career writing code. Then came an opportunity that changed its direction entirely: helping support a national workforce initiative as the UAE worked towards becoming a knowledge-based economy. It left her with an idea that has shaped the two decades since - technology may be built through architecture, but organisations grow through people.
That distinction matters in an industry experiencing extraordinary growth. Data centres need more talent, but repeatedly competing for the same limited pool of people isn't a sustainable answer. Sandhya argues that the next challenge is to create talent rather than simply recruit it, while making sure onboarding, knowledge, culture, and development aren't sacrificed in the race to scale.
The conversation also looks at what happens to culture when a company outgrows its startup roots, why transformation begins and ends with people, and how AI could redraw the boundaries between technology and human capability. For Sandhya, that future makes judgement, empathy, trust, and integrity more important, not less - and places people leaders much closer to the heart of business strategy.
In an industry busy building the infrastructure for an AI-powered world, this episode asks an equally important question: who are we building to deliver it?
01:20 - Introduction to Sandhya
02:25 - How did you go from computer science to people and transformation leadership?
05:40 - Across different countries and cultures, what have you learned about what’s universal in people leadership, and what needs to be tailored?
07:12 - What are the key leadership principles you live by?
09:00 - Why do organisations sometimes underestimate the human side of transformation?
13:54 - When a company is scaling rapidly, what comes under pressure first from a people and culture perspective, and how do you manage it?
18:16 - As a company grows, how do you balance preserving its culture with allowing it to evolve?
23:00 - What attracted you to the data centre sector, and what surprised you when you entered it?
25:36 - Looking at how technology has evolved throughout your career, what feels genuinely different about AI?
32:42 - What advice would you give to someone looking to build a career in people leadership?
Connect with your host, Jenny Gladman, on LinkedIn.
Find your guest, Sandhya Mutreja, on LinkedIn.
Thanks for listening to Conversations in Cleantech brought to you by Brightsmith.
This is a Loaded Hype production.
