About GREAT LEAP | Kerala's Leading HR & Payroll Consultancy

Our Story

From One Belief to 300+ Businesses

GREAT LEAP was born from a simple observation: most SME businesses in India are owner-driven — not system-driven. The owner is the HR department, the finance department, the operations head, and the decision-maker all at once. And when the owner is everywhere, nothing truly grows.

We started with a conviction that this didn't have to be the case. That a business with 20 employees deserves the same quality of HR infrastructure as one with 2,000 — designed right, implemented properly, and maintained with discipline. Over the years, we have worked with businesses across Kerala and South India in industries ranging from healthcare and manufacturing to retail, hospitality, and financial services. Each engagement has reinforced the same truth: when a business has a system, it grows. When it doesn't, it struggles — regardless of how talented or driven the owner is.

Today, GREAT LEAP manages payroll and compliance for over 25,000 employees monthly, has served 300+ client organisations, and has built a reputation for being the partner business owners trust when they're serious about building something that lasts. We are not a vendor. We are your HR operating partner — invested in your business the way you are.

Our proudest metric? The number of business owners who sleep better at night because they know their system is running.

Our Philosophy

Our Approach: See the Whole Picture

At GREAT LEAP, we believe that HR is not a support function — it is the operating system of your business. Every structure, every policy, every compliance requirement, and every people decision either accelerates your business or slows it down. We approach every client engagement by looking at the complete picture: where you are, where you want to go, and what systems you need to get there.

01

Discipline Creates Freedom

Systems and processes can sound restrictive — but the reality is the opposite. When your HR processes run on discipline, you as the owner gain freedom: to focus on strategy, on growth, on the future. The more disciplined your HR system, the more liberated your business becomes. We build that discipline into everything we do.

02

HR means Business

This isn't just a tagline — it's the lens through which we see everything. Every HR decision carries a business consequence. An unclear job description leads to a wrong hire. A weak policy leads to a dispute. A missed filing leads to a penalty. We connect every HR action to its business impact — and that's what makes us different.

03

Build to Last

We don't do quick fixes or patch problems. We build systems designed to last — as your business grows, as regulations change, as your team expands. Everything we create is documented, transferable, and scalable. The goal is always a system that outlasts our involvement, because that's what a real system looks like.

04

One Step at a Time

Every system change is ultimately a people change — and people resist change. In today's workplaces, where Gen Z brings different expectations and ways of working, new systems need structured change management: communicating the why, moving at the right pace, and addressing resistance before it becomes conflict. Because even the best system fails if the people inside it aren't ready for it.

Leadership

The People Behind Your System

Experienced practitioners. Not theorists. Every member of our leadership team has spent years in the field — and that on-the-ground knowledge shapes every system we build.

Excellence Award — VBA Business Summit 2024

Founder & Managing Director

Babu Jose

Six Sigma Certified BNI Chapter President Eagles Pillar Award VBA Excellence Award 2024

Babu Jose brings something rare to HR consulting — a decade of hands-on corporate experience inside three world-class organisations: Reuters, Genpact, and Indus Towers. That corporate grounding, combined with the practical realities of running a business, is what made him see the gap clearly: SME business owners in India were being left behind when it came to structured, professional HR. GREAT LEAP was his answer to that gap.

A certified Six Sigma professional and transformational expert, Babu applies a systems-thinking mindset to every client engagement — building HR frameworks that are not just compliant, but built to scale. His approach is rooted in the belief that discipline in HR creates freedom in business.

Beyond consulting, Babu is a recognised figure in Kerala's entrepreneurial ecosystem. He served as Past Secretary of Vijayeebhava, one of Kerala's most active entrepreneur networks with 700+ members. He is a proud member of the Eagles community and recipient of the prestigious Eagles Pillar Award. He is also an active BNI member of the BNI Kochi Leaders Chapter, where he has served in multiple chapter leadership roles including as Chapter President — a recognition of his standing among business leaders across Kochi.

In 2024, he was recognised with the Excellence Award for HR Entrepreneur at the VBA Business Summit — a testament to the impact GREAT LEAP has had on the SME landscape in Kerala.

Approved Faculty & Examiner Panel — Kerala University of Health Sciences

Director — Finance, HR & GREAT LEAP Academy

Jolfy George

Head of Department KUHS Approved Faculty Finance & HR Director GREAT LEAP Academy Lead

Jolfy George joined GREAT LEAP in 2025, bringing over a decade of distinguished academic and professional excellence. Her career spans key leadership roles — including Head of Department — across three reputed world-class educational institutions, giving her deep expertise in institutional governance, faculty leadership, strategic operations, and academic administration.

Known for her meticulous attention to detail and process orientation, Jolfy plays a pivotal leadership role across three critical pillars at GREAT LEAP: financial governance and controls, internal HR systems and people processes, and the strategic growth and academic quality of GREAT LEAP Academy. Her academic credibility is further recognised through her inclusion in the approved faculty list and examiner panel of the Kerala University of Health Sciences.

Her blend of academic rigour, departmental leadership, and strategic management is a cornerstone of GREAT LEAP's commitment to operational excellence — and a key force behind the organisation's mission of building high-performance businesses and empowering professionals.

External Consultants

Our Expert Advisory Panel

Seasoned specialists who bring decades of field experience to every client engagement.

Varkiachan Pettah

Principal Consultant

A seasoned HR and Labour Law expert with decades of experience, Varkiachan brings deep operational knowledge that grounds GREAT LEAP's consulting practice in real-world compliance and best practice. His expertise spans across industries and regulatory frameworks, ensuring that every system we build is not just theoretically sound but practically bulletproof. Varkiachan's involvement in client engagements provides the assurance that GREAT LEAP's work stands up to scrutiny — in the boardroom and in the labour court.

Adv. Sirji A

Legal Consultant

A practicing advocate specialising in labour law, Adv. Sirji provides the legal backbone to GREAT LEAP's compliance practice, ensuring clients stay protected and ahead of regulatory changes. Her deep expertise in Kerala's labour law landscape — covering Industrial Disputes, ESI, PF, Gratuity and Employees Compensation matters before the High Court of Kerala, Labour Courts, and Tribunals — means GREAT LEAP's clients benefit from legal intelligence that is current, practical, and action-oriented.

Why Work With Us

Four Reasons Business Owners Choose GREAT LEAP

10+ Years of Expertise

Deep experience in HR and payroll across 20+ industries. We've seen the problems your business faces — and we know exactly how to solve them.

Team of Specialists

Dedicated experts in payroll, compliance, HR audit, and technology — not generalists who dabble. Every function of your HR system is handled by someone who does it every day.

Execution-First, SME-Tailored

We don't hand over frameworks and walk away — we roll up our sleeves and implement. Every solution we build is tailored to the scale, culture, and reality of your SME, not borrowed from a large-company playbook.

Award-Winning Leadership

CEO Babu Jose received the Excellence Award for HR Entrepreneur at the VBA Business Summit 2024 — recognition of GREAT LEAP's impact and commitment to transforming SME businesses across Kerala.

We Don't Just Do HR. We Build Businesses.