FOUNDER TO THE PROFILE
Global Leader - Team Member Experience, Yum! Brands
“Beyond my family’s support and God’s blessings, I would attribute my success to two things. First, I’ve been fortunate to have coaches who encouraged me to try new things and take risks. Knowing that someone had my back, even if I failed, gave me the confidence to push myself. Second, early in my career, I was always trying to avoid failure. Over time, I learned that failure will happen. What matters is how you respond to it, what you learn, and how you move forward.”
Umang Sethi is a global restaurant leadership and human resources professional with nearly two decades of experience building people strategies, leadership capabilities, and high-performing workplace cultures. He currently serves as Global Leader – Team Member Experience at Yum! Brands, where he focuses on capability building, employee experience, and leadership development across the company’s diverse restaurant markets. In this role, he partners closely with operation and training teams to create practical, scalable learning solutions while using technology and people strategy to strengthen the experience of restaurant employees around the world. Sethi’s career with Yum! Brands spans more than 13 years and includes leadership positions across field and franchise HR, talent and learning, compensation and benefits, and corporate human resources. Before moving into his current global role, he led Field & Franchise HR in India, developed leadership training programs, supported succession and development initiatives, and helped drive engagement and retention among frontline restaurant teams. Earlier in his career, he worked with Bharti Retail and Future Group (Pantaloon Retail India Ltd.), managing HR for large employee populations and contributing to talent programs, store incentives, productivity, and employee retention. His progression from a retail management trainee to a global HR leader reflects his breadth of experience across operations, people development, and organizational culture. Sethi holds a PGDM in Human Resources from Amity Business School and completed executive education in innovation leadership at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He has also pursued professional development in strategic thinking, critical thinking, leadership, and self-awareness, including HeartStyles and Inclusive Leadership training. Throughout his career, he has emphasized creating workplaces where people feel respected, supported, and inspired to grow. He credits his success to family support, guidance from coaches and mentors, resilience, and the willingness to take risks, learn from failure, and continue moving forward.
IN HIS OWN WORDS
Beyond my family’s support and God’s blessings, I would attribute my success to two things. First, I’ve been fortunate to have coaches who encouraged me to try new things and take risks. Knowing that someone had my back, even if I failed, gave me the confidence to push myself. Second, early in my career, I was always trying to avoid failure. Over time, I learned that failure will happen. What matters is how you respond to it, what you learn, and how you move forward.
One of the best pieces of advice I received was that doing good work is not enough. You also need to communicate the impact of your work. Earlier in my career, I believed my work would speak for itself. Over time, I learned that sharing your perspective and helping others understand the impact is equally important.
Be open to trying different roles and don’t be afraid to take a path you hadn’t planned. Some of my biggest learnings came from stepping into something new. And most importantly, be resilient. I learned that from two of the strongest people in my life, my mother and my wife. Things won’t always go as planned, but don’t give up. Learn, adapt, and keep moving forward.
One of the biggest challenges is that training can still be treated as a tick-in-the-box activity rather than an ongoing journey. The real measure of training isn’t how many hours people spend learning or how many courses they complete. It’s what they do differently afterward, how they grow, and ultimately how that contributes back to the team, the customer, and the business.
Family, faith, and resilience. My family keeps me grounded, my faith gives me strength, and resilience reminds me to keep moving forward even when things don’t go as planned. These values shape both how I live my life and how I show up at work
PERSPECTIVES
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