What It Takes to Build a Talent Hub Outside the Metros | Shruti Sudhnva | Chief People Officer | Excelsoft Technologies

Most of the leadership team in our organization, Excelsoft, has been with the company for well over fifteen years, and a large share of them joined early in their careers. Several joined straight out of college. One came in with under three years of experience and is a CXO here today.

That says more about whether a Tier-2 city can work as a talent hub than anything else. Low cost does not build a leadership team like that. People do not stay in one place for two decades because the rent is lower. People stay where they see opportunities to learn, excel and grow.

Mysuru offers good institutions nearby, shorter commutes and a better environment for families. At the same time, our teams build assessment and learning technology for customers across the world. A young engineer here is not working on a smaller problem than a peer in Bengaluru.

Some things are harder. Hiring senior and highly specialised talent outside a metro is genuinely more difficult. The pool is thinner. You either persuade someone to move, or you grow the person yourself. We have done both. Some of our most senior people joined mid-career, with about two decades of experience behind them, and have stayed nearly as long again. But it takes patience, and it is slower than hiring in Bengaluru.

The question people always ask is about Bengaluru. It is three hours away, and now you can work for a company there without moving at all. We do lose people to it. Pay alone was never going to hold anyone at that distance. What has held is that we spot capable people early and then give them mentoring, direct work with international customers, and the travel that goes with it. A much larger employer finds that harder to offer at that stage. An engineer in her twenties can own an overseas customer relationship. That is not exposure most people get that early.

People who have grown inside the company understand the customers, the domain and the culture. Outside talent still matters, for the perspective it brings. You need both, and over time that mix strengthens the local talent market too.

This is the part companies tend to miss. A sustainable talent hub cannot rest on one or two large employers. It needs colleges in and around the city that we hire from and invest in, peer organisations willing to share what they know, and industry bodies that bring people together. Talent has to be able to move between employers locally, or it will move out of the city instead.

Technology has removed much of the old disadvantage of being outside a metro- connectivity, hybrid work, and now AI tools that reach Mysuru at the same moment as Hyderabad. But it is worth being clear about what technology actually changes. It removes the disadvantages of place. It does not remove the value of place. Ecosystems, institutions and communities are still local, and they have to be built by the people who are there. Tools alone will not build them, and they will not make a workforce ready for what comes next.

Decentralisation is not about moving jobs from metros to smaller cities. It is about building places where people can learn, grow and lead without leaving the communities they come from. When that happens, Tier-2 cities stop being alternatives to the metros and become talent hubs in their own right.