Puneet Renjhen
Founding Class
Director, Standard Chartered Bank

 


Previous Occupation: Director, Anand Rathi Securities
Present Occupation: Director, Standard Chartered Bank
Sector: Investment Banking
Work Experience: 10years

There are a lot of students at ISB who would like to break into the Indian industry. Do you think this the right time to graduate? What are the skill sets students need to acquire?
If things go well, this is one of the best year to expect openings. Truth be said, capacity or the intake of fresher's has shrunk during the recent years. It was on a higher curve during 2003 to around 2007; however, in 2011 and around that time, people started to realize there is nothing much happening and hence started to cut down on the work force. Now the markets are beginning to show the early signs of picking up, so if that happens then I would surely say this is one of the best years to graduate..
Companies today prefer to add capacity at the junior level. There can be two reasons for such a trait.
1. Consider you have a few junior level consultants or analysts working under a senior VP. Now you wouldn't want to go around hiring another VP, but to hire more of junior level consultants and let your old employees have the chance to scale up on the corporate ladder. In other words you would want the people already working there to have a natural progression.
2. Junior level analyst is the one who does all the work. So you would want to hire more of them in order to get the work done soon, rather than higher a senior executive and have a junior analyst crunching numbers. So in a nutshell, this would probably be one of the best years to graduate and hopefully things will look good and capacity will be created.
Coming to the skill set required to excel in whatever you do is to have a sound technical knowledge. Having a sound knowledge base on finance and investments can take you a long way. As a college graduate, you wouldn't necessarily have practical experience and that is not so important but technical knowledge is not what a company slips on in their selection criterion.

Other traits required by individuals in this industry are:
Positive attitude: Sometimes things can get monotonous especially when you're doing the same work for 15 hours a day for 6 months to 1 or ever 2 years. Certainly a positive attitude is what one needs to inculcate in oneself. You will have to be passionate about what you do and only then can we do things in a positive manner.
Maximum productivity:Another skill set you need to acquire is the knack of maximum productivity with the least of resources. This skill is not important initially but as you move up in the investment banking space, this can prove to be an advantage.
Content and client connect:This is a very important trait that every new analyst must showcase. There are some brilliant analysts who put forth wonderful models and presentations. However, they struggle to present this before the clients. This can prove to be a downside. Of course, technical content needs to be there without which you will be thrown out of the board room in 10 minutes but along with that, the convincing and presenting ability needs to be there too.

In such a high pressure job, what do you do other than work to maintain that composure and to renew your ability to work the next day?

Again, it's all about self motivation, whether you take the job as a challenge or something you can't do. There are some people who can do it and some people who can't. It's just there in your DNA. Your boss can call you at 2:30 am on a Saturday and check if you can come on Sunday to make a presentation. At that point it depends on how you look at it, as an opportunity or a burden.

But does the work get better as you move up?
Certainly the working hours get better, no doubt on that. Along with this two more things might happen:Pressure intensifies. From building models to making presentations and following deadlines, as a project manager your mental pressure is very high.
Flexibility will certainly come into the picture. You will have the flexibility to move to Hyderabad because you can make an analyst under you to stay in Mumbai. So this happens only when you move up.
However you cannot expect luxury and fancy cubicles for yourself. You might be an analyst and have to work with a small desk. Another guy who is in a much better position than you with 10 houses and fancy cars might have a desk which is a little bigger than yours. So if a fancy cubicle or some thrills is what you are looking for then you're up for some disappointment. Because when the downturn comes then it's going to be a very bad situation. So you either take the compensation or wish for the perks.

You’re 40 and now an MD, where does the natural progression take you from here?
Well if you are an MD aged 40 or 45 then you must be 15 years down the line in the investment banking space. You might have earned a good amount wand enjoy financial stability. So most people look for some other less tiring job which doesn't require you to kill yourself and be on a plane 5 days a week. . However some people have a more ambitious nature and go on till 50 or 55, so again it's all about the interest and the love for the industry as a whole and at each level or stage of your career.

The market looks good and it's a good time for this class to pass out. However, how do we as ISB graduates get the market excited about us?
Well, the people who come to ISB for their post graduation, have at least a few years of experience in a wide variety of fields. So they wouldn't want to start over again in investment banking working as an analyst for almost 20 hours a day.
So the markets believe that people with so much of experience would want to unlearn everything, come here and learn from scratch. This is what you will have to put out there, a notion which says we are willing to learn from scratch. That will help the market understand that you are ready to learn and capacity is ever increasing so it will lead to many openings for the graduates.
 

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