Rakesh Kumar Receives a 2026 Global Recognition Award for AI-Driven Advancement in Enterprise HR Technology

Rakesh Kumar, Vice President at EXL, has been honored with a 2026 Global Recognition Award for his concrete contributions to HR technology, including AI integration, workflow redesign, and a 40 percent improvement in operational efficiency across enterprise HR shared services.

New York, NY, United States, February 27, 2026 — Rakesh Kumar, Vice President at EXL, has received a 2026 Global Recognition Award for his measurable contributions to human resources technology and his demonstrated ability to integrate artificial intelligence into the operational fabric of enterprise HR. The award, conferred by Global Recognition Awards, acknowledges professionals who have achieved excellence in their fields and delivered scalable, consequential impact beyond their immediate organizations. Kumar’s recognition reflects a broader industry shift in which AI is no longer a peripheral consideration but a central force actively reshaping every layer of the HR function.

Photo Courtesy of Rakesh Kumar

Kumar’s career covers more than two decades, beginning as a Process Associate at Genpact in 2001 and advancing through progressively senior roles at Accenture, EXL, and Deutsche Bank before returning to EXL, where his cumulative tenure totals eighteen years. His current role as Vice President, Level 2, sees him leading HR technology, AI-powered HR work, and HR shared services. These responsibilities represent the culmination of a career built with consistent and deliberate purpose. In 2026, with 43 percent of organizations now leveraging AI in HR functions, up from 26 percent in prior years, Kumar’s body of work places him among the foremost practitioners of a field undergoing rapid and irreversible change.

Redefining What HR Operations Can Do

The conventional view of HR as a transactional support function, primarily responsible for processing payroll, managing onboarding, and fielding routine queries, is precisely what Kumar set out to change through sustained, disciplined leadership. He deliberately positioned HR as a strategic partner capable of influencing enterprise-wide decisions with evidence rather than instinct. This shift required new tools and a fundamental change in how HR teams understand their role within a business. Kumar built that capability from within EXL, embedding AI and analytics into engagement frameworks, payroll governance, and day-to-day workflows, so that the movement from reactive to proactive HR became structural rather than superficial.

Among the most significant changes Kumar led was the transition from reactive, email-heavy communication to AI-enabled personalized communication frameworks, which reduced friction in HR interactions and created more consistent employee experiences across a large, distributed workforce. He directed the Oracle HCM implementation at EXL. He developed AI solutions using Microsoft Copilot, practical deployments that moved well beyond the proof-of-concept stage, and generated strong user feedback across the organization. Each HR shared service unit he oversees now supports approximately 600 additional employees compared to 2024, a structural expansion achieved not by adding headcount but by redesigning workflows through automation and standardization, resulting in roughly a 40 percent improvement in operational efficiency while simultaneously reducing the marginal HR support cost per incremental employee.

Innovation With Structural Depth

Global Recognition Awards evaluates nominees through a process that applies the Rasch model, a psychometric measurement system that constructs a linear scale across multiple categories, enabling precise comparisons between applicants who may excel in different areas. Kumar earned scores of 5, the maximum defined as exceptional or world-class, for novelty and originality of innovation, technological advancement, adoption rate, and user feedback, results that confirm the rigour and consistency of his approach. His market impact and disruption of existing paradigms were each rated at 4, reflecting significant and still-expanding reach across the enterprise HR space. “Rakesh Kumar exemplifies what it means to lead with vision and execution, and his AI-powered advancement of HR operations represents exactly the kind of world-class innovation that a 2026 Global Recognition Award is designed to honor,” said Alex Sterling, a spokesperson for Global Recognition Awards.

Kumar’s academic credentials, including a General Management Programme from Management Development Institute, Gurgaon, a Six Sigma Green Belt certification, and Microsoft Certified Professional designations in VB and SQL, reflect a practitioner who invested in cross-functional expertise at a time when that combination was not yet standard in HR leadership. His approach to shifting decision-making from intuition to evidence, combined with his commitment to ensuring that AI tools are adopted broadly rather than abandoned after launch, demonstrates a level of strategic coherence that distinguishes him from practitioners who treat technology as an end in itself. “Kumar’s work stands as a practical model for HR leaders across industries who recognize that the future of workforce management is not administrative, but intelligent, and that it has already arrived,” Sterling added.

Final Words

“What makes Kumar’s contribution particularly significant is not the scale of it alone, but the durability of what he has built,” said Alex Sterling of Global Recognition Awards. “He has not simply introduced tools into an organization; he has restructured the way a major enterprise understands the relationship between human resources and business performance, and that is the standard this award was created to recognize.” Kumar’s professional history demonstrates a rare consistency at the executive level, given that he entered the HR field at its most foundational operational level and spent two decades acquiring the technical fluency, organizational authority, and strategic vision needed to change how large enterprises manage their workforces.

A 2026 Global Recognition Award recognizes individuals who have achieved excellence in ways that are replicable, scalable, and consequential, and Kumar meets that standard in whole through a body of work that has already changed how one of the world’s most complex HR environments operates. The demand for leaders capable of translating technological possibility into operational reality has never been greater, a reality underscored by the accelerating pace at which AI continues to reshape enterprise HR in 2026. Kumar’s career demonstrates that such change is achievable and can be delivered with measurable discipline, broad adoption, and lasting structural effects, offering a replicable model for the industry at large.

About Global Recognition Awards

Global Recognition Awards is an international organization that recognizes exceptional companies and individuals who have made significant contributions to their industries.

Contact Info:
Name: Alexander Sterling
Email: Send Email
Organization: Global Recognition Awards
Website: https://globalrecognitionawards.org

Release ID: 89184506

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