Sharad Saxena, HT Media’s executive director, passes away

Sharad Saxena, 59, executive director (HR and operations) at HT Media Ltd, died on Monday after a brief but valiant fight against cancer.

Saxena oversaw the human resources, production, and supply chain functions at HT Media, and was a core member of the company’s senior leadership team. He worked at the company for 15 years, joining in 2004 after a stint at PepsiCo Holdings India. He had also worked at Eicher Motors Ltd. Saxena played an important role in communicating HT Media’s value systems to thousands of employees, conducting a series of values workshops; he was also involved in the digitization of the HT newsroom, from helping shortlist and pick a vendor for the content management system, to overseeing the actual physical transformation of the newsroom. Saxena graduated from Birla Institute of Technology, Mesra (Ranchi), and was an avid badminton and tennis player. In school and college, he was also a promising cricketer.