ZaitoonHR
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The founder

Kamran Khan, SPHRi.

Strategic HR leader. Acting Head of HR at Life Pharmacy. Thirteen years building and transforming HR functions across Amazon, Noon, Landmark Group, Acko, and Coal India. The reason Zaitoon HR exists is that those years showed me what works at scale, and what is broken for every UAE business that isn't an enterprise.

13+
Years in HR
8,000+
Largest workforce led
5
Multinational employers
105%
Emiratisation delivered

Has built and transformed HR at

AMAZONNOONLANDMARK GROUPLIFE PHARMACYACKOCOAL INDIA LIMITED

The vision

Bring enterprise-grade HR practice to every UAE business.

Over thirteen years, I have run HR at the scale of an Amazon fulfilment centre, an 8,000-person Noon workforce across countries, and a 600-store Life Pharmacy retail business. Across all of them, the same patterns repeat. Good HR is structured, documented, measured, and humane. Bad HR is ad hoc, paper-based, and reactive.

Most UAE businesses, from the corner pharmacy to the regional logistics player, are stuck with bad HR. Not because they want to be. Because the tools available are either too expensive, too generic, or both. Global HRMS platforms cost a fortune and do not understand UAE labour law. Spreadsheets do not scale past the first ten employees.

Zaitoon HR is the system I would build for myself. Practical, UAE-native, priced for any size of business, designed around the workflows that actually matter to operators. Not a slide deck. Not a feature list. A working platform.

Built where it is needed, by someone who has needed it.

Track record

Thirteen years. Six brands.

Life Pharmacy

July 2025 to present · Dubai

Head of HR (Acting) · Senior Manager HR Strategy and Transformation

Acting Head of HR, partnering directly with the Chairman across retail, corporate, and B2B verticals. Leading enterprise-wide HR transformation, organisation design, policy and governance, HR technology and analytics, and leadership capability building.

  • Engineered an automated pharmacist deployment model across 600 plus stores, delivering AED 7.2M annualised cost savings and optimising around 200 FTEs.
  • Reduced annualised attrition from 35 percent to 10 percent through a structured retention architecture and three career programmes (Grow With Life, Chairman's Club, Leaders for Life).
  • Achieved 105 percent Emiratisation compliance against the regulatory target.
  • Launched a ticketing-based Employee Support Centre, improving response rates by 35 percent.

Landmark Group · Home Centre

January 2023 to June 2025 · Dubai

Senior Manager HR (GCC)

Led HR business partnering and talent acquisition for Home Centre GCC, managing a team of four. Partnered with business leaders on performance management, talent development, and succession planning.

  • Delivered a 15 percent improvement in leadership bench strength inside twelve months.
  • Increased internal engagement scores by 18 percent through targeted engagement initiatives.
  • Reduced regrettable turnover by 12 percent year-on-year using HR analytics to identify attrition patterns.

Noon

March 2022 to January 2023 · Gurugram, India

Head of HR and Global HR Shared Services

Led HR and talent acquisition for India and oversaw global HR shared services, supporting a workforce of 8,000 plus employees across multiple countries. End-to-end HR operations including payroll, onboarding, offboarding, and the employee help desk.

  • Reduced onboarding time by 30 percent through process redesign and automation.
  • Improved payroll accuracy to above 99.5 percent.
  • Established a centralised help desk model that significantly improved query turnaround.

Amazon

July 2016 to March 2022 · Bengaluru and Ludhiana, India

People eXperience and Technology Partner (Site HR Lead) · HR Specialist · HR Business Partner

Five and a half years across Amazon Operations in roles spanning site HR leadership, employee relations, and people analytics. Implemented the Adaptive Labor Model (ALFA), rolled out Amazon's Child Care Benefit, and built site HR teams from the ground up.

  • Built the Digital People Board, an interactive dashboard for leaders to track engagement, attrition, and talent movement in real time.
  • Built an Early Warning System to flag employee risk indicators, reducing escalations and attrition in critical teams.
  • Led DE&I programmes and implemented a new HRIS tailored for Amazon's contingent workforce.

Acko

March 2019 to June 2020 · Bengaluru, India

Deputy General Manager · Human Resources

Led HR operations and compliance for a 500 plus employee workforce at a digital-first insurance company. Implemented a new HRMS and built scalable HR practices for a fast-growing business.

  • Implemented a new HRMS platform, streamlining payroll, leave, and employee records.
  • Designed and launched a High Potential (HiPo) talent programme.
  • Introduced a structured background verification process, reducing onboarding risks.

Coal India Limited

March 2013 to July 2016 · India

Assistant Manager · HR

Led the HR function at a coal washing plant, covering the full employee life cycle for 1,500 employees: recruitment, onboarding, performance, compliance, and employee relations.

  • Drove the digital transformation of employee records, replacing paper files.
  • Implemented a performance management system aligned to operational KPIs.
  • Managed and mentored a team of ten HR professionals.

Credentials

Education and certification.

  • Senior Professional in Human Resources (International)

    SPHRi

  • Postgraduate Program in Digital HR Transformation and People Analytics

    XLRI Delhi-NCR

  • MBA, HR and Marketing

    Central University of Kashmir

  • Lean Six Sigma White Belt

    Certified

Get in touch

Talk to Kamran about your HR challenge.

Whether you need the platform, a consulting engagement, or a second opinion, every enquiry reaches the founder directly.

Start a conversation→LinkedIn profile