Aparna Chitale is the Chief People Officer [CPO] at Virgin Galactic. Aparna has over 20 years of strategic experience at multi-national organizations, where she has scaled and led global teams at both public and privately held companies.
As CPO, Aparna leads all aspects of human resources, including diversity, equity & inclusion, talent acquisition, employee experience, learning & development, compensation & benefits and corporate security. Before joining Virgin Galactic, Aparna, served as Vice President of Human Resources at Disney Parks Experiences and Products. In this role, she led the HR strategy for the company’s International Parks business in Paris, Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Tokyo, as well as overseeing HR for Disney’s Engineering, Maintenance, and Safety teams. During her time at Disney, Aparna designed and implemented holistic people strategies – including diversity and inclusion programming – that supported business priorities across corporate functions, engineering, international parks, and cruise line businesses. Prior to Disney, Chitale led Human Resources for Avaya India PVT Ltd, where she built the HR infrastructure that was instrumental for rapid business growth with a strategic focus on building large engineering and technology teams.
Aparna holds a master’s degree in Personal Management and Industrial Relations from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences in Mumbai, India, and a Bachelor of Science (Chemistry) degree from Pune University, India.