The Human Stakes: Dr. Mohit Sharma: AI and Human Potential

SSBM Geneva is proud to celebrate the remarkable achievement of its alumnus, Dr. Mohit Sharma, who successfully completed his Doctorate in Business Administration (DBA) in Human Resource Management, graduating with Distinction.

Building on his doctoral research and professional experience, Dr. Sharma has further contributed to the global conversation on the future of work through his book, The Human Stakes: Five Capacities That AI Cannot Replicate — and How to Build Them. The book examines the uniquely human capabilities that remain essential in an increasingly AI-driven world and offers insights into how individuals and organizations can intentionally develop these strengths.

Can you tell us more about your book?

As AI absorbs the analysis, the drafting, and the synthesis that made up the cognitive middle of professional work, the premium shifts to five things it structurally cannot do: moral courage that costs the person exercising it something, trust built through physical presence, wisdom earned by having been wrong and surviving it, the ability to hold a question open rather than forcing it closed, and authorship of one’s own professional story.

The chapter I am most attached to makes an argument I have not seen elsewhere: that these five capacities are universal in existence but local in expression. What moral courage looks like when exercised well in Doha is not what it looks like in Dublin. Most leadership advice is developed inside one professional culture and exported as though it were universal, and professionals who follow it faithfully in unfamiliar terrain often find it actively counterproductive.

It came from my HR leadership across seventeen countries, and specifically from watching capable people fail in unfamiliar markets for reasons that had nothing to do with capability. I had been collecting that observation for the better part of a decade before I understood it was a book rather than a private theory. The hardest part was not the argument but the honesty. The book asks readers to examine what they have quietly surrendered — their judgement, their presence, their willingness to sit with difficulty — and it would have been dishonest to ask that without doing the same.

Dr. Mohit Sharma book recommendation SSBM Geneva

What is your professional background?

I am a Global HR Strategy and Organisational Development Associate Director at Synergy Consulting (a leading financial advisory firm), leading the people function for 17+ countries. Earlier, I led HR functions at IFFCO, AU Small Finance Bank, and IndusInd Bank. I am PMP certified, hold the XLRI HR Executive Development Programme, two PGDMs in HR, Two Diplomas in Psychology and English Hons and a Master’s degree, and I serve as Honorary Vice President of the Bloggers’ Alliance.

You graduated with a DBA from SSBM Geneva. Tell us about your SSBM experience.

I completed my Doctorate in Business Administration in Human Resource Management at SSBM Geneva, awarded with distinction. My research focused on the Impact of External Talent on organisational dynamics; SSBM published it. What the programme gave me, more than the credential, was the discipline of holding a claim open until the evidence actually supported it. A great deal of what I had accumulated in twenty years of practice was intuition, and the doctoral process forced me to separate what I genuinely knew from what I merely believed. That distinction runs through the entire book, and I do not think I could have written it before the DBA.

I should also mention my mentor, Prof. Petar Sasa, who supervised me. He believed in this book before I did, and reviewed it when it was still finding its shape. He is named in the dedication.

In his work, Dr. Sharma represents the kind of forward-thinking scholarship that connects academic knowledge with the challenges facing today’s business leaders. Through his research, writing, and professional contribution, Dr. Sharma exemplifies the spirit of lifelong learning and innovation that SSBM Geneva seeks to foster among its students and alumni.

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