Chitra Shinde
Vice President Operations of DHL Express Singapore Pte Ltd

The logistics and supply chain industry is the backbone of the world economy. It plays an important role in easily transporting goods, services, and information across borders. The industry encompasses transportation, warehousing, inventory management, and last-mile delivery, which supports businesses of all sizes. For a connected world, logistics provides important support for e-commerce, international trade, and specialized industries like healthcare and life sciences. This industry is characterized by the reliance on technology, innovation, and sustainability, in light of the growing consumer demands for speed, reliability, and environmentally friendly solutions. Across its divisions which include DHL Express, it offers an unrivaled portfolio of logistics services ranging from national and international parcel delivery, e-commerce shipping and fulfillment solutions, international express, road, air, and ocean transport to industrial supply chain management.
Chitra Shinde has been Vice President of Operations at DHL Express Singapore since March 2024, but DHL has been her home for over twenty-five years. Since joining DHL Express in 1994 as a trainee, she has handled roles, such as operations and IT functions, across six countries in the Asia-Pacific region. She has built a name around visionary leadership, customer centricity, and teamwork. She has driven operational excellence and innovations and the company’s resilience, adaptability, and passion for delivering a best-in-class customer experience while adding value to sustainable growth are very aptly reflected in her journey.
From Aspiration to Achievement: Unveiling the Secrets of Leadership Success
This journey has taken her across six countries of the Asia-Pacific region, exposing her to diverse and challenging experiences. Her experience and positions over the years have covered diverse operational roles, each being taken on at appropriate times that reflected both professional competencies and responsibilities toward her family and other priorities. This intentional approach allowed her to gain rich experience working with diverse teams and navigating different operational environments. Her choices enabled her to embrace the diversity of people, cultures, and challenges, molding her into a versatile leader with an international perspective.
As the Vice President of Operations at DHL Express Singapore, she oversees how DHL’s global strategy can be delivered locally. She works with her team to align her local operations with broader strategic objectives while motivating and challenging them to continuously improve. “Motivated people and Teamwork are very important to achieving sustainable success,” she states. She believes that the foundation of sustainable success lies in fostering a positive and collaborative work environment. She also attaches great importance to customer experience. She says that continuous improvement of the customer journey is critical, as the key drivers of growth are customer loyalty and feedback. She states the importance of being innovative to create an edge. “We have to innovate to continually wow our customers with a consistent and high-quality experience,” she explains. It is this kind of innovation, with an unwavering pursuit of customer satisfaction, that has characterized her leadership.
Milestones and Defining Traits: The Pillars of Success on the Leadership Journey
At DHL, Chitra has received the best support culture that respects giving and receiving feedback. “We have a great culture of giving and receiving feedback,” she shares, “and this has enabled me to grow as a leader and handle more complex operations and markets.” One of the most important initiatives she had during her tenure as Vice President of Operations, at DHL Express, in New Zealand included significant investments in infrastructure, expansion of the workforce, and flight capacity for handling rapid growth during the pandemic. She knew that the growth would eventually stabilize, so she followed a strategic approach by making the most out of the synergies with DHL’s group of companies. This made the operation agile.
Currently, as the Vice President of Operations at DHL Express in Singapore, she has been working towards making optimum use of the infrastructure available in the company to cater to both domestic and international demands. Among DHL Express Singapore’s many initiatives, one notable effort has been the implementation of Domestic Same-day Sprint line service. The offering encourages customers to order until midnight, and the pickups occur by the next morning. It improves order-to-delivery timelines, thus providing substantial growth in domestic shipments and customer delight.
She works with colleagues from other countries to further enhance end-to-end service delivery beyond Singapore. Her contributions have strengthened her position as an industry forward-thinking leader. She stresses having a very clear vision of the future and then working backward to what needs to happen now to deliver that future vision. Over the years, she has sharpened her skills from execution to shaping direction so that every action undertaken aligns with long-term goals. She has overcome challenges and uncertainty and navigated change by staying positive and resilient. She keeps her focus on clear priorities, continually creating value for customers, even in complex situations.
Industry Leadership and Key Offerings Driving the Future of Logistics
DHL Express has invested significantly in infrastructure and service offerings to keep the company competitive and efficient in meeting the growing demands of the logistics industry. For instance, upgrades to its South Asia Hub near Changi Airport have been a focus area in Singapore. These improvements include the installation of high-tech X-ray scanning technology, one of the strategic steps in preparing for increased volumes of shipments. This move is part of DHL’s continuous investments to bolster its aviation network and ground facilities in the past year to enable it to support new trade demands and the traditional peak season spike.
DHL Express’s On-Demand Delivery tool is popular among online shoppers too. It gives the customers more control over their shipments as it lets them manage when, where, and how deliveries are made, thereby enhancing the overall customer experience by giving them more flexibility and convenience. These innovations are continually fine-tuned based on feedback from customers to ensure that DHL is always one step ahead and is at the top of the game.
DHL Express also showed great agility and resilience during the Covid 19 pandemic by successfully accelerating its operations during this period to meet a surge in demand, speaking volumes for the strength of its infrastructure and systems. Crucial to this success was the deployment of tools such as the Advanced Quality Control Centre which monitor and address exceptions in real time. This enabled the company to detect and resolve potential issues before they impact the customer, thus ensuring a smooth and reliable delivery process.
Challenges and Shaping a Future Roadmap: Leadership Success Story
In terms of personal growth, Chitra highlights the importance of self-reflection and self-development in overcoming obstacles. “I had to be very intentional about my competencies and development plan with a clear vision of where I wanted to be in a decade,” she explains. By identifying the skills and competencies needed for success, she has been able to build the necessary foundation for senior leadership. Her openness to take feedback and learn from role models within the organization has further heightened her leadership ability. These skills are portable and will allow her to excel in any role.
She emphasizes that attracting and retaining an evolving workforce requires even greater priority. She is passionate about growth opportunities for employees, and creating a culture of development and empowerment. Employee development is deeply rooted in DHL’s culture through its various training and development programs, including the Certified International Specialist (CIS) program which all employees go through when they join the company to enhance their knowledge and skills. This has contributed to the company’s recognition as a great place to work by global people analytics and consulting firm Great Place to Work® Institute. Globally, DHL Express is ranked first in the ‘Large’ workplaces category, maintaining its first position since 2020. DHL Express is also ranked number one on Asia’s Best Workplaces™ lists in 2024 and in Singapore, it has been the Number 1 Great Place to Work for five years in succession.
DHL is also committed to sustainability and aims to be the Green Logistics Provider of Choice. In Singapore, the company launched its Electrification Plan in 2019 to reduce its carbon footprint. Today, it serves around 30% of its daily routes on electric vehicles and is striving towards 100% by 2030. DHL is also investing in high-growth sectors such as life sciences and healthcare. She is particularly excited about bringing DHL’s speed to the Life sciences sector by developing solutions for the sector beyond clinical trials through its Worldwide Medical Express Service, Time Definite, and Worldwide Package Express Service.
Words of Wisdom: Advice for Aspiring Leaders
Chitra offers valuable advice for those aspiring to leadership roles, explaining the importance of consistency, reliability, and resilience. “Authentic and effective leadership can be learned,” she shares, highlighting that leadership is a journey that requires continuous self-improvement.
“Everyone has their own journey,” Chitra reminds aspiring future leaders. If she remains true to herself, with a growth mindset and willingness to learn, she believes success will happen naturally. That’s the approach that her message of leadership and perseverance is anchored in.