Caelisa Appleton — KPMG India - Associate Director Learning Design and Technology

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Associate Director, Learning Design and Technology – KPMG India April 2024 – Present 

  • Align learning strategy and design with business priorities, internal maturity model, and industry best-practices. Learning has remained in the top 5 of the firm-wide Global People Survey over a 3-year period
  • Leading learning design codification effort at the firm to standardise learning methodologies across all businesses, resulting in a 40% reduction in design efforts and consistency in measurement and evaluation
  • Heading design and strategy of firm-wide leadership development programs for nearly 3500 employees from Assistant Manager to Director groups. Designed multi-month, multi-modal interventions using data-driven learner insights to enhance effectiveness. Reaction, relevance, and effectiveness metrics consistently above 90%, average 25% reduction in attrition, and over 90% performance goals met or achieved for all cohorts
  • Fronting Learning Technology at the firm including platform research, evaluation, contracting, implementation, and platform adoption; part of the global pilot launch of three key platforms
  • Spearheading the implementation of the Metrics That Matter methodology at the firm, reducing effort in creating, tracking, and deploying evaluation by nearly 60%. Integrating MTM into the firm’s evaluation codification, upskilling teams to incorporate and implement across businesses and learning modalities
  • Institutionalising best practices to leverage AI in creating assessments, developing content, and analysing evaluation reducing conception to delivery timeline by nearly 45% while ensuring alignment with design principles
  • Project Lead for the Brandon Hall Group HCM Awards 2024, creating submissions, reviewing peer submissions and sharing best practices leading to 100% win rate across 10 award categories
  • Learning Lead for firm-wide wellbeing intervention, leveraging the ADKAR change model to drive systemic behaviour transformation. Collaborated across HR CoEs and gained sponsorship from national leaders. Liaised with specialists to curate a program aligned to Level 5 Bloom’s Taxonomy and all levels of the Kirkpatrick Model.

 

Manager, Learning Design – KPMG India December 2021 – March 2024 

  • Redesigned blended leadership development programs for new AMs, Managers, and ADs incorporating learning theories and neuroscience, learning analytics, and empathy mapping to inform the design
  • Key reaction metrics for all journeys designed till exceed 90%; ROI for the 2023 journeys ranged from 100% to 3000% for Managers, Associate Directors and Assistant Manager programs with over 90% meeting or exceeding performance expectations, 20% reduction in attrition, 94% NPS
  • Restructured the firm’s learning architecture, aligning to the 70-20-10 model through enhanced use of learning platforms resulting in annual savings of ~INR 50 lakhs. Introduced Kirkpatrick Model’s L3 and L4 metrics for key initiatives to increase the scope of measurement and evaluation
  • Spearheaded the first firm-wide Learning Needs Analysis at the firm, with a response rate of nearly 35%, well above the industry average of 15-18%
  • Lead the vendor engagements at the firm, assessing, onboarding and scheduling the external specialist session schedules including but not limited to programs at leading B-schools.

Curriculum Manager, L&D — Coding Ninjas Junior July 2020 – April 2021 

  • Established and led the Training and Quality teams; recruited and mentored a team of four
  • Used ADDIE, the Kirkpatrick Model, Bloom’s Taxonomy and adult learning theories to conduct needs analysis, design training structure, develop multi-modal content, and create assessments
  • Optimised new hire training to a blended model, boosting throughput from 76% to 94%, training bandwidth by 66.6%, and achieving training feedback scores of 94%
  • Ensured escalations resolved within 48 hours, achieving a 92% CSAT score post first audit
  • Drove BQ conversion from 5% to 15%, Quality scores from 3.2 to 4.6, and sales by 200% in one quarter.

 

Senior Manager Campaigns and Dissemination — SAHAS India March 2018 – April 2020 

  • Developed core program structures and assets for teacher training on classroom management and learner engagement driving Math, Science, English scores by 20% YoY for primary grades
  • Drove a miro-learning endeavour to upskill EWS women on personal finance and employable skills. Facilitated a weekly baithak that enabled nearly 60 women to increase income and savings.

 

Freelance Instructional Content Developer and Copyeditor May 2015 – February 2018 

  • Created and reviewed storyboards, content, and assessments for eLearning, ILT, blended learning products on STEM, Organisational Development, and Soft Skills for K-12 and corporate. Key clients include Encyclopedia Britannica, Liqvid eLearning, and Eupheus Learning
  • Copyedited and proofread 36 higher-education titles for Pearson India.

 

Founder and Sole Proprietor — Wake & Bake March 2011 – March 2015 

  • Established one of Delhi’s first to-order cloud-based gourmet cupcakeries. Single-handedly managed all business functions and sold over 30,000 cupcakes till date
  • Catered leading events including NH7 Music Festival and LBBD’s Dessert Bar; featured in The Hindu, GQ India, Harper’s Bazaar and catered corporate and individual festive gifting.

 

Consultant Content Manager — eReady Technologies March 2009 – October 2009 

  • Led content development for a K-12 STEM eLearning product for the US market; headed a team of eight SMEs and designers and collaborated with an international cross-functional team
  • Conducted needs analysis, defined and designed content architecture, and usability tests.

 

Lead Voice and Accent Trainer — IBM Daksh August 2007 – March 2009 

  • Spearheaded an organisation-wide project to revamp training methods, processes and content
  • Calibrated scoring tools, monitored calls and provided feedback to 240 agents, raising CSAT scores from 2.7 to 4.2 in a quarter. Trained 720 new hires on process-specific hard and soft skills
  • Piloted an asynchronous training module for new hires, boosting throughput from 67% to 88%.