Previous Occupation: Vice President, Global Trust Bank
Present Occupation: Director, Swarnim  MultiVentures Pvt Ltd
Sector: Private Equity
Work Experience: 12 years in Banking, finance & Investments
Interests – Professional/Personal: Entrepreneurship, travelling and sports

Tell us about yourself – your profile, recap your professional life after ISB including your career progression
I have been working in the financial sector since my graduation in engineering in 1998 and continued to be in the same field after my graduation from ISB in 2003.

From 2005 I have been running a family owned finance & investment company. Over the years I have transformed this non-active company to a Private Equity investment entity. Being a small entity, we had to do things differently and find a niche. We started investing into financially troubled companies, worked along with the existing team and provided both capital and strategic inputs to turn-around the business. This part of our business saw me put my entire learning from ISB to full use.  During 2006, the country saw many international Real Estate Funds entering the Indian market.  We found an opportunity in investing into non-FDI compliant real estate projects; where there was lower competition, and this went on to establish our Real Estate Investment division. We have started investing into small & medium sized to provide growth capital or new businesses.

Prior to this I worked with Global Trust Bank, both before and after ISB. At the bank I had the opportunity to work extensively with small and medium enterprises for their corporate banking needs and also with large companies for their financing requirement through traditional banking products and also innovative structured products. This gave me a thorough understanding of the financing requirements of companies.

Key take-away from the ISB
There are many take-aways from ISB, but I think the most important of them all would be the strong analytical and problems-solving skills. A network of friends for life, whom I can call for both personal and professional guidance, advise and help.

How do you think the ISB has contributed to your career growth
ISB has played a very positive role and contributed immensely to my career. When we got started in our Investments business, we soon realised it was a crowded market and there were larger and well established players. My learning at ISB taught me to look at things differently; using these learnings we formulated a unique strategy and then created our own niche.

What is your vision for the School?
ISB should be known for thought-leadership, enriching the corporate world and policy makers in the Government through relevant and original research and case studies. It should also endeavour to become a centre for global entrepreneurship – development and support, as in my opinion India will see a burst of entrepreneurship in the next decade. Over the next decade, I would like to see atleast 500 ISB alumni at leadership positions such as CEOs / entrepreneurs / Business heads and also heads of social organisations.

What are the strengths that the School can leverage upon and areas it can improve
The school now has a large Alumni network, ISB can explore to work actively along with the Alumni towards building high-quality, relevant and original research and case studies, this would be a very valuable resource not just  for ISB but also for other business schools.

How do you think alums can associate with the School or alum’s role in building the School
Alumni are the Brand Ambassadors of ISB. Every alumni has to make it a point to stay connected with the school, it would be an opportunity for the Alumni to contribute back to the school, either through mentoring programs, information session, helping out at admissions or placements, help build ISB’s own research and case-studies library etc.
I believe Alumni should work with each other, help out one and other, across batches, and further each other’s professional growth, this would help fostering a strong and professionally dominant Alumni network.

What is the area you can contribute in?
I have been actively in touch with ISB ever since I  graduated, and trying to chip-in where ever I can. I was one of the founders of ‘Aikya’ – the host family network. In the coming years, I see myself more active in the entrepreneurship related activities of ISB, either guiding or mentoring young entrepreneurs coming out of ISB.

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