In FINO group he has worked in different roles in his 10 years of tenure. He also has the experience of working in the manufacturing and supply chain industry.
Email-id – [email protected]
Q. How has been your journey from IIFM to this role?
A. Very challenging and exciting journey I would say, working right from the bottom of the product lines servicing the customers to strategy building at the corporate office.
Despite IIFM being a sectoral college, the versatility in the course curriculum gives you a platform to choose your job in the different sectors. I got the campus placement in FINO Paytech who is the pioneer in the financial inclusion space providing tech solutions to extend the financial reach to rural India. I started my journey after IIFM as Management Trainee with FINO Paytech. I remember the very first assignment that I got as a management trainee was to appoint the agents with one of the public sector banks, having the offline handheld devices for accepting the deposits from the bank’s customers in the bank’s premise itself just because the queue used to be so long that a customer used to wait for hours and hours for making a cash deposit in his bank account. I used to do extensive field visits those days. I visited various villages of western UP to appoint the BC agents as part of this assignment. It was a realization of the fact for me that the banking facilities were actually not in reach of the rural people, something that we used to study in IIFM.
In the MT role and thereafter, I got the chance to work in the different departments under different leaderships, at the different locations experiencing the field role and the corporate role as well. I was fortunate that I got the chance to work in 5-6 departments (field operations, systems, finance, reconciliation, cash management, loans) of the organization in the initial 3-4 years of my career which gave me a deeper understanding of the business needs in the financial inclusion space.
Back then, the reach of the rural people to the financial services was very limited and the financial space was changing very fast with the focus on financial inclusion. The exposure of working in various projects for the various banks over a period of time helped me to understand the core of the business in the initial years. Later on, I was given charge to lead the team of IT support and BC lending business of FINO group’s lending wing “Fino Finance”. I am thankful to Professor Ashutosh Verma’s lectures on microfinance which really helped me in understanding the microfinance concepts. This role allowed me to know the complete in and out of the MF business along with liaising with funders.
After a stint of 9 years with FINO, I got an opportunity to work overseas with Aron Global (AG), a global supply chain company in timber and scrap trading. In AG, I was based in Panama City in Latin America. It was like an entrepreneurial role and a kind of lifetime opportunity one can have in a career wherein you would get a chance the run a company on your own. A great opportunity to know the business at the ground level in the supply chain, understanding the challenges of the supply chain industry and the impact of global events in the trading business. We all know that any company runs with key objectives of minimizing the cost and maximizing the profit, right! But how many of us experience this out of our daily routine jobs, very few. Here, I got to know how this works. If you can get these two objectives met optimally, you have the quality of being a successful entrepreneur. Here, I got to know what an entrepreneur is.
Then I joined back FINO in its Payments Bank entity in IT project management, another milestone in my career for getting a chance to develop project management skills. I am working in this role for the past 8 months.
In short, 10 years post IIFM have been very enriching and full of diversified experiences. I can proudly say that IIFM has been a founding stone to my career. IIFM teachings played a crucial role in building the professional discipline.
Q. What were some of the key milestones/learning in this journey that you would like to share with us?
A. The key milestones and learnings are –
- Experiencing the field challenges and need of the financial systems for rural India during the management trainee role in the first year of the job.
- How the customer needs are identified and products are built to cater to their needs being in the corporate office.
- Managing the business development and operations of microfinance business helped me understand how the low ticket size asset business is managed, how important is the discipline for a successful business when I got the chance to work with the microfinance division of FINO.
- Importance of cost minimization and timely decision making to meet the bottom line of the business P&L while working with AG.
- How important the timely deliverables are to keep the edge over the competitors for customer retention while working in my new role of project management.
Q. What is the most satisfying part of your current role?
A. Banking is changing so fast and so is the use of IT applications. New processes and products are part of it. In the current role, I come to know about all the enhancements going on in the organization which keeps me up to date to the industry as well.
Q. Has your learning at IIFM helped in shaping how you approach your professional roles?
A. Yes, definitely. Institute is always a founding stone in anyone’s career and it is upon the individual how to inculcate these learnings into the professional roles. All of your courses may not be directly linked to your professional role but they will always be of use someday. Apart from learning the fundamentals of finance and operations; IIFM taught me discipline and determination as well as working under strict deadlines (to complete the assignments). All these attributes played a very important role in my professional career.
Q. Who (or what) are the biggest influences or drivers in your careers? What would be your advice to freshers and IIFM graduates who are looking to choose similar sectors/roles.
A. In academics, we slog hard to get good grades but that’s not the only essential thing for success in the professional world. I will advise freshers to work on personality development along with scoring marks. In professional roles, knowledge is definitely required but to be effective you would need to possess attitude and aptitude towards the work. Hard work, determination, communication, integrity, etc. are some of the key personality traits that would be needed. So focus on overall development.
I believe, our seniors influence us the most once we start working in a selected professional domain. They play an important role in driving your career apart from the fact that you decide the sector in which you want to work.
Q. What are your favorite memories during your IIFM days?
A. IIFM stay has been full of unforgettable memories. Some can be told here, some can’t be. Some of the most memorable experiences includes – the strategy of dividing the course and then discussing in the group (we used to call it harvesting) in the computer lab, field trips, night drives to the railway station for chai-poha, rooftop parties, lunch outside mess, Holi celebrations, Cricket matches in weekends, Bike rides to almost all nearby destination, etc. All this make me feel like I am just passed out from IIFM. Really, really unforgettable.
Q. In hindsight, what was the biggest contribution (courses, faculty, library, friends, alumni.. Anything else!!) or take away from IIFM that you think played a critical role in shaping you as an individual or professional?
A. Special mention to our accounting professor Prof. Ashutosh Verma. He made accounting easy for me to understand which became an important skill set required in my career so far.
Q. The best buddies / seniors /faculty at IIFM? Some memorable tidbits that you like to share?
A. I had several friends from my batch, senior batch, and junior batch. But I would like to mention my group. We were 8 in our group as best buddies and mostly used to hang out together. Although everyone had a different character there was a special chemistry between us. I wish I can live that time again with all of them.
Among the faculties, Biswas Sir was closest to me. He was always available for everything.
Q. As an alumni, what’s your advice to freshers or those are joining IIFM to get best out of the 2 years there?
A.
- Choose the sector early in which you want to work with, and focus more on the related courses. It’s important to choose early and focus in that direction.
- Get yourself updated with the industry changes.
- Library and sports facilities are good in IIFM, use them fully.
Q. What is your typical day at the office?
A. As it is work from home these days, most of the time goes on meetings on MS teams, conference calls, reviews with team and superiors.
The day generally starts at about 9:30 AM with our daily huddle call with team members and aligning the work for the day, project reviews, and so on as the day progresses.
Q. How about weekends, Hobbies, Family and anything else you want to add?
A. Weekends are generally at home now with family in COVID time, else I used to go trekking on weekends or go for a long drive. Trekking has been a stress reliever for me in the last few years.
Q. Favorite Books, movies, authors
A.
- Favorite books: The Tipping point, The Pursuit of Happiness, You Can Win, Rich Dad Poor Dad
- Favorite movies: 3 Idiots, Sholay, The Troy, Pursuit of Happiness, Chak De India.
Q. IIFM is driven by alumni’s passion and commitments towards its goal. How would you like to contribute to IIFM or IIFM alumni, students?
A. I will be happy to contribute, whatever I can. I am always reachable.
Q. What do you think is different at IIFM now vs when you studied there? What do you think is a positive change and what is not?
A. Unfortunately, I have not visited IIFM for the last 4 years but I guess a lot of changes have happened over a period of time in the campus with the industry needs. The good thing is that the students are proactive in contacting Alumni. They are oriented towards professional connections since the time they join the institute.
Q. Any suggestions on who you want to get profiled/interviewed here?
A. Himwan Gupta, Sahil Mehta, Manish Singh, Mayank Rai, Ritwajit Das.