Heaven in Hel(L)

Before coming to IIM Lucknow, I was very clear about two things:

I want to make a career in the finance domain.

I don't know anything about finance.

When I could not clear the waitlist of another college by 1 or 2 positions, which was famous for its finance domain, I was utterly heartbroken. When the IIM L result came, and I converted it, while the other converts posted that they were so happy to have made it, I was like, "Okay". I was going to IIM L with no expectations, but I was prepared for the worst, giving respect to Hel(L). So much so that I enrolled in the prep course, even though I was not required to.

It was the first and last time I saw the second-year students being busier than the first year. Before the prep course, most of my life revolved around engineers; school friends, college friends and job friends. Going through it, I met people from diverse backgrounds, from Arts, Commerce, Biotechnology, Medical, Veterinary Sciences, Agriculture and many more. Concepts that I could answer even in my sleep were entirely new for most people in the class, so I would help others understand them. At the same time, they would know things, which I had no idea about.

From that moment onward, I never took anything for granted at Hel(L). I was also grateful that I would study with CAs, doctors, lawyers, economics grads, etc.

I had the opportunity to learn from some of the best professors I have ever seen in my life:

1.   The 'Behaviour in Organisation' professor, Prof. A G Balasubramanian, in whose class, watching a movie with my section mates was part of solving a case. The 'Communication for Management' professor, Prof. Payal Mehra, whose every assignment was an epitome of learning with fun, and that was how I wrote my first LinkedIn article. The 'Financial Reporting & Analysis' professor, Prof. Madhumita Chakraborty, whose every word made us forget that we were reading a Subject about which everyone warned us. The 'Human Values and Responsible Citizenship' professor, Prof. Jolly Priya, busted so many myths regarding Gender Sensitization in the professional environment. The 'Information Technology Concepts' and 'Management Information Systems' professors, Prof. Pradeep Kumar and Prof. Vivek Gupta, made learning excel and other tools a joy. The 'Legal Aspects in Management' professor, Prof. D S Sengar who made complex law terminologies easy by using stories. The 'Managerial Economics' professor, Prof. Somdeep Chatterjee, made demand and supply concepts feel like a breeze. The 'Marketing Management - I' professor, Prof. Anirban Chakraborty, made us think like an ordinary person first and then like a marketeer. The 'Quantitative Analysis for Management - I' professor, Prof. Jyotirmoy Dalal, emphasized regular problem solving and to whom I felt an obligation to set right my previous wrongs in the prep course and worked doubly hard.

2.   The 'Designing Work Organisations' professor, Prof. Ranjeet Nambudiri, used other people, whom we did not know, as the fake public who ambushed the company executives meeting as part of a role-play in the class to deal with a PR crisis. It felt almost real and made us realize the gravity of the situation. The 'Macroeconomic Environment' professor, Prof. D Tripati Rao, used newspaper articles to help us thoroughly understand the complex macroeconomic concepts. The 'Management Accounting' professors, Prof. A K Mishra, with his famous sutras for helping us understand all the difficult concepts quickly and Prof. Vipul took us deeper into the cases by using multiple what-if scenarios and leaving us with possibilities that we had not even thought about. The 'Marketing Management-II' professor, Prof. Ashish Dubey, taught us sales & distribution management using various channels and familiarised us with the market research fundamentals. The 'Operations Management' professors, Prof. Samir K Srivastava with his vast research experience and Prof. Suresh K Jakhar, who had the envious task of teaching us at 2:30 PM, when we would already have had 2-3 classes from the morning and as he used to say, we would sleep after eating till our neck on the comfortable swivelling chairs in the cool AC. The 'Quantitative Analysis For Management- II' professor, Prof. Kaustav Banerjee, made us solve so many problems that choosing null and alternative hypothesis almost became fun. The 'Written Executive Communication' professor, Prof. Nandita Roy, taught us how to write the company's right vision and mission statements.

3.   The 'Financial Management' and 'Corporate Valuation and Restructuring' professor, Prof. Ajay K Garg, always built a story around all the concepts that he taught and made us thoroughly understood valuation. The 'Human Resource Management' professor, Prof. Pankaj Kumar, made us realize the importance of Socialization when a new member is inducted into an existing setup and how to pass on the culture to them. The 'Indian Economy' professor, Prof. K G Sahadevan, facilitated thought-provoking discussions in the class over Asian Tigers' growth rate compared to India. The 'Quantitative Analysis For Management- III' professor, Prof. Yogesh Agarwal, gave us assignments using simulation, making studying the last QAM subject a fun affair. The 'Strategic Management - I' professor, Prof. Sabyasachi Sinha, made us realize the importance of positively impacting lives through our actions to become genuinely successful. The 'Supply Chain Management' professors, Prof. Sushil Kumar and Prof. O S Vaidya, taught us inventory and warehouse management. Competing against the section mates in the business simulation game in which we had to manage a soda pop bottling plant was one of the best parts of the course.

4.   The 'Agri-input Marketing' professor, Prof. Sanjeev Kapoor, gave us the detailed nuances regarding how the marketing of Agri inputs becomes different from other products. The 'Financial Statement Analysis' professor, Prof. Seshadev Sahoo, gave us an end-to-end picture of the balance sheet, P&L and cash flow statement using the example of ITC and built a story around how to do a comprehensive financial statement analysis. The 'Financial Derivatives and Risk Management' professor, Prof. Alok Dixit, simplified the concepts of derivatives and showed us how it is done in real life by guest lectures and the final project. The 'Investment Management' professor, Prof. Vipul, made us realize the importance of always understanding the fundamentals of the concepts rather than just scraping the surface or memorizing them. The 'Design Thinking' professors, Prof. Sushil Kumar and Prof. Anirban Chakraborty, made us realize the importance of having empathy for the user and designing for the extreme users. The 'Revenue Management & Dynamic Pricing' professor, Prof. Suresh K Jakhar, always made the classes enjoyable. It was fun to play the simulation and compete against the classmates to use dynamic pricing and revenue management concepts in real-time. The 'Strategic Management - II' professor, Prof. Rupanwita Dash, whose 7:45 PM class I would eagerly await even after having 3-4 classes since the morning. Maam would make the classes very enjoyable to make it a perfect end to the day and the simulation played, in which I made a huge mistake, and was very disappointed with myself, but still won it, was one of the best parts of the class. The 'Consumer Behaviour' professor, Prof. Devashish Das Gupta, gave us practical knowledge by having a guest lecturer in most classes.

5.   The 'Agricultural Commodity Derivatives Markets' professor, Prof. Kushankur Dey, taught us how derivatives are used in trading agricultural commodities and what differentiates them from derivatives on other asset classes. The 'Behavioral Finance' and 'International Finance' professor, Prof. Madhumita Chakraborty, made us realize how we think in a predictably irrational way and how to be aware and overcome our biases. I learned the importance of putting a limit order, having stop loss and a target price after losing almost the entire money made in the currency trading simulation on FXCM. I started from scratch again and made the highest profits in the end and secured the highest marks as a group, to not let the group down because of my mistakes. The 'Hedge Fund Strategies' professor, Prof. Ashish Pandey, emphasized doing everything with integrity and taught us some complex concepts in a simple manner, which were hard to grasp immediately, but we understood them as the course concluded. Trading as a hedge fund manager as a group with a portfolio worth 50 crores was one of the best parts of the course. The 'Fixed Income Market' professor, Prof. Sowmya Subramaniam, who took the easiest to miss 8:45 AM class in the winters, taught us the nuances of bond portfolio management with some fantastic guest lectures. The 'Structured and Project Finance' professor, Prof. Vikas Srivastava, taught the course with so much passion that during one of my interviews with a project finance consulting firm, I was quoting the cases that we read and what he taught in the class and the interviewer was highly impressed with the knowledge. The 'Management of Public Affairs and Public Policy' professor, Prof. Dipti Gupta, made us understand the complexities of policy-making and the implementation process.

6.   The 'Mergers and Acquisition' professor, Prof. Neeraj Dwivedi, taught many real examples and built a complete story around the M&A concepts. The 'Financing Start Ups' professors, Prof. Prakash Singh and Prof. A Vinay Kumar, taught us how to evaluate startups and discussed the term sheet in detail. The 'Fundamentals of FinTech & Financial Services' professor, Prof. Praloy Majumder, gave us a complete understanding of how the fintech ecosystem is evolving and expanding at a breathtaking pace. The 'Operations Strategy' professor, Prof. Rahul Pandey, taught us how operations could be designed to support the business strategy. The 'Talent Management and Development' professors, Prof. Ashok Bhatt and Prof. Punam Sahgal, taught us how to attract, nurture and retain talent to build a sustained competitive advantage. The 'Psychology of Enterprise Transformation' professor, Prof. Rajesh Premchandran, taught us how individual behaviour and influencing techniques could inspire and motivate people into action. The 'Team Building' professor, Prof. Archana Shukla, in whose class, the only effort required would be to reach the 8:45 AM class on time. After that, there would always be something new and exciting in every class, be it movies or group exercises, to inculcate the team-building spirit. I will never forget the Bridges game, where our group was the last at the beginning, and by sheer teamwork, we were able to win it in the end. We were all drenched with sweat and satisfaction on the convocation ground that day.

There were a few professors who impacted me more than the others. I want to thank them in the order they taught me:

1.   Prof. Madhumita Chakraborty, who taught us FRA in the first term and Behavioral Finance and International Finance later. FRA was the first fin subject I ever learned, and Maam taught us with a lot of patience. She gave us the confidence to ask any question in the class if we were not understanding anything and answered our queries very patiently, staying late after the class getting over until the last student was there to ask doubts, and sometimes it was us only who would leave first because it was lunchtime. It was always a pleasure to be in her class and ask any question that came to mind.

2.   Prof. Vipul, with his in-depth knowledge about the concepts that he taught in the class and urging us to always go deeper into the basics of the concepts regarding why something is done the way it is being done. In cases where we would just scratch the surface, he would always go deeper into what would happen if this happens. He would generate scenarios within scenarios, and a case we would think of as simple would leave us breathless and our head so hot by all the thinking, in the end. He showed us how to be knowledgeable in the domain, impart that knowledge, and do the job at hand sincerely but, at the same time, be humble about it.

3.   Prof. Suresh K Jakhar, who would make the classes so interesting that we would have gone to attend the class even at 2:30 AM in the night, which was equivalent to the 2:30 PM classes that he actually took. No matter how silly a doubt a student would ask in the class, he would make the student believe that he has asked something wonderful and encourage the student to ask more doubts. He motivated us a lot in the class to take care of our body and adopt a healthy lifestyle to achieve our full potential. And, the best part was that he led by example.

4.   Prof. Vikas Srivastava, who would stress the important points and pitfalls in the Structured and Project Finance domain again and again so that they become ingrained in us. He built a complete story around the field, taking cases from all the major sectors. In the last lecture, he told us that we might not have much say in most of the important things in life that happen to us, but we always choose how we live our lives, and we should always give our best rather than focussing on things we cannot change. The passion with which he taught the subject is something I want to imbibe in anything that I will do in my life.

5.   Prof. Neeraj Dwivedi, with his in-depth knowledge about the M&A domain, systematic way of teaching and humbleness, made us realize how to do the job at hand. He taught us how to solve the cases with the correct mixture of story and data crunching and extensive use of exhibits to find out the appropriate information. I learned how a job done with total focus and sincerity speaks for itself and has a contagious effect on others.

Thanks to the staff at the library and elsewhere and guards on the campus for always doing things in our best interest and helping us out, making IIM L one of the most amazing campus.

The General Management Programme for the Defence Officers (DGMP) batch of 2020, with their passion, dedication, discipline, energy, humbleness, vast experience and easy-going nature, truly inspired me to always put forward my best efforts, be it in the classroom, having a conversation or in the sports field. I learned from them that if someone praises you, then it becomes your duty to praise them as well, thereby finding something good in them. My MBA journey became so much more beautiful because of them.

Thanks to all the alums of the Volleyball team who have worked tirelessly to build an amazing culture in the team, making it one of the best sports on the campus. They always came and supported the team during MV, Sangharsh, and the Hel(L) Volleyball League, and I hope our batch and onwards, we can continue this legacy. A big thanks to the Volley team who never lost even a set in Sangharsh, MV and all other tournaments we participated in. Every time we won, the sheer joy of playing in this team was all I cherished, which was visible in the results. I wish the team the best for the future.

Thanks to all the alums and the PGP36 futsal players, who have shown so much energy and enthusiasm in playing futsal. We have started on the right note by winning Sangharsh last year, but the real test would be to develop a good team culture where any student from PGP37 onwards would want to come and play regularly because of the sheer joy of playing and learning this beautiful sport. With the team in the right hands, I am confident that this sport will become one of the best sports on campus in the coming 5-6 years and with the right culture, I am sure success will be a companion.

Thanks to FinShiksha, whose courses, live projects, career advice, and competitions at the national level benefitted me greatly in understanding the finance domain and comparing my finance understanding against people from other B-Schools.

Thanks to the CFA Institute for awarding me the CFA Access scholarship and making the journey to the CFA charter a lot easier.

Thanks to Bhavishya, the social initiatives committee of IIM L, for organizing the blood donation camps, visits to safe homes, painting graffiti on the school walls or fund-raising events, including the harmony cup. Every time after taking part in them, I would feel how privileged I am, and I found myself with more humbleness, gratitude towards life and a responsibility to do something for the less privileged.

Thanks to The Annapoorna Mess for feeding us almost 24*7. Thanks to all the clubs and committees for helping us prepare for the summer, HEPP and final placements, making the campus happening with all the events, inviting distinguished speakers for talks and organizing competitions.

Thanks to Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages for selecting me as a summer intern, and I hope I justified the faith shown in me. Thanks to Red Fort Capital for choosing me to join the company full-time, and I hope that I will fulfil their expectations.

As for regrets, I miss not doing the student exchange at EDHEC business school, Nice, the experiential learning course and Sangharsh at IIM Calcutta due to COVID.

Focussing on the right things and the right people, out of so many people and so many things happening on the campus, made the difference for me.

I found Heaven in Hel(L). I wish my alma mater all the best in its quest to become one of the best institutes in the world for management education, and I hope that I can play my part in this journey.