Sanjoy is a development finance professional with more than 25 years of experience. Currently he is working as General Manager, Climate Change & Sustainability, NABARD and operates from Mumbai.
Starting his career in the paper manufacturing industry, he has handled various positions and portfolios in NABARD and it’s consulting subsidiary NABCONS. During his long journey, he has been a key team member in various bilaterally supported NRM based livelihood programmes, handled infrastructure finance portfolio of about 2500 Cr, worked at grassroot level development initiatives And also been responsible for Implementing various climate change projects funded under various national and international funds. He is a graduate in Agriculture Sciences from BHU, Varanasi and also completed a Masters in Economics from Panjab University, besides completing a post graduate diploma from IIFM.
LinkedIn: https://in.linkedin.com/in/sanjoy-ghosh-5b06023a
Q. How has been your journey from IIFM to this role?
A. It has been an exciting and interesting long journey so far with lots of learnings and unlearning on the way.
Life is a winding road, a tapestry woven with experiences, challenges, and moments of profound self-discovery.
IIFM grooms our skills in a very diversified way enabling us to take assignments and challenges that could be done only because of our amazing learnings there.
I am still carrying a zeal to learn new things and experiment more in my journey ahead as I am an eternal optimist who strongly believes that Life begins at 50!
Q. What were some of the key milestones/learning in this journey that you would like to share with us?
A. I had reached BHU for a career in Agri Sciences although was unable to make it to medical ( like most of the fellow students in class) but got introduced to multi culturalism and handling life by oneself which helped me immensely.
The metamorphosis that began in BHU reached a culmination at IIFM with a group of wonderful classmates.
My work life began with a 2 year stint with Ballarpur Industries, Chandrapur, Maharsahtra from campus. I joined with all the raw flavour and ‘josh’ of the campus and soon realised the hard way, the disadvantages of wearing heart on your sleeve!
Lots of learnings in the stint, right from ensuring raw material supply from the deep LWE infested patches of Gadchiroli district to a department representative in the Re-engineering team led by Mc Kinsey and Co.
Switched to NABARD 2 years later and was fortunate to have developed a very diversified range of experience, from handling bilaterial funding assignments, infrastaructure financing, working with grassroot agencies in some remotest parts of West bengal, to almost 9 years in Consultancy space and almost 6 years in the domain of climate action by now.
Continued my learning during the journey all this time and completed Masters In Economics from PU, picked up skills in data Sciences and strategic management from different centres of learning and continue taking small steps forward everyday.
Q. What is the most satisfying part of your current role?
A. It is difficult to pin down a particular role so let me summarize.
- Each role brought with it life time experience and learnings.
- My stint as District Development Manager in Midnapur, West Bengal allowed me to be a part of the rural community for 5 years, working with them deeply on designing and implementing numerous livelihood programmes, initiated JLGs and could do enormous amount of market linkages for SHGs, which was being run by NABARD as the worlds largest micro credit programme.
- As VP, Business Development and later as COO of NABCONS, was instrumental in accelerating the growth of the company multifold in various segments. I could also venture into many unchartered domain, giving immense professional satisfaction and success.
- As part of Climate Action Team of NABARD presently, intensely associated with a lot of exciting development at NABARD, which holds a prime position in the Climate space in the context of our country.
Q. Has your learning at IIFM helped in shaping how you approach your professional roles?
A. Learning at IIFM has definitely helped in shaping how I approached my professional roles at the start of my career. Concepts like “people’s participation” designs with a humane face have stayed back for lifetime and I am privileged to work with an organisation where you can touch peoples lives and see the transformation happening.
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. Teachers, colleagues and friends have always been the most significant influencers for me. My spouse and my two lovely daughters have always been a bedrock of support in all my efforts.
I advise all freshers to excel in whichever field you have chosen. Try and make your career choice early. Keep learning at every stage of your life. Nothing goes waste; everything is useful at some point of time. And also, as my class fellow Manish had earlier mentioned in his journey, do adopt a robust Personal Knowledge management system.
Q. What are your favorite memories during your IIFM days?
A. There are quite a few many, in fact innumberable! But my OT with Vineet Rai & Jayesh Bhatia, almost lost in the wilderness of the thick Balugaon forests near Chilika lake, Odhisha, will always be etched in my memories.
And then the tea breaks during classes, sitting outside mess after food, reading novels after the evening cuppa, perched upon the railing behind the mess, social gatherings on the rooftop of the hostel, singing sessions at lantana block ( led by my senior Sujoy Banerjee )Its actually endless… IIFM days were magical.
Q. In hindsight, what was the biggest contribution or take away from IIFM that you think played a critical role in shaping you as an individual or professional?
A. a. Our IIFM library
b. Prof B P Pethia – who not only taught us Financial Management and Managerial Communications but the most important sense of discipline and timeliness which has been instilled as a life time take away.
c. Prof P K Biswas – Who kept in touch with me, both virtually and in person all through the last 25 years.
Q. The best friends / seniors /faculty at IIFM? Some memorable tidbits that you like to share?
A. Difficult to name anyone specific as we had a great class of PFM 1992-94. I made friends- for- life at IIFM. We were a small class, and I have cherished memories of all my classmates, as well as seniors.
Q. As an alumnus, what is your advice to freshers or those are joining IIFM to get best out of the 2 years there?
A. These are some of the best years of your life – live it. Work hard, play hard, and make friends for life.
Q. What is your typical day at the office?
A. Meetings and more meetings, clearing files and reading & editing reports. Very different from the consultants’ life I had for last few years.
Q. And how about weekends, Hobbies, Family and anything else you want to add
A. Photography, reading & traveling. I also use my weekends and holidays for doing my role of a visiting faculty at IGNFA,Dehradun teaching Project Designing using concepts like ecological rate of return, PES and also preparing docs for scoping finances etc
