Three Decisions

It’s been a busy start to 2021 thus far but I have had some time to reflect and I guess with a year like 2020 behind us we have all done our fair share of reflection. For me personally, apart from 2020 being the momentous year that made us rethink and reset our ways, it is also significant in that it marked 20 years of my professional career.

It got me thinking about how my career has shaped up, my mentors along the way, and what advice I would give to young people who are just beginning their professional lives. Let me do this by talking about …

Three key decisions that have probably defined the course of my career:

1.When the world of global opportunities was opening up, I decided to trust my conviction and stay back in India

In 2000, when I passed out of IIT, Kharagpur with a bachelor’s degree in Electronics, maybe the most logical step and one that several of my classmates took was to pursue further studies in the US and look to build a career there. I did think about it too but decided to stay back and build my career in India. This was partially out of a sense of national pride as a young kid who wanted to make a difference, but also in line with what I felt was right for me and where I would like to live my life. I had always felt I could make a bigger impact here and even back then could sense a great opportunity emerging in India.

2. Chose passion over comfort and taking a risk versus going with the flow

I worked for a year after IIT and then went on to pursue my post-graduation from IIM Calcutta, graduating in 2003. After getting my degree, I started working in a stable consulting role in an outstanding IT company. But somewhere it didn’t feel like I was really where I wanted to be. I had always harbored a desire to be in markets and when the opportunity presented itself, I had to take a 50% salary cut to join what was at that time a small firm that offered a markets role - Edelweiss Capital. I was married then, had a kid, and would have to move from Chennai to Mumbai for this role; and most of my well-wishers thought that I was making a mistake. But I was very sure that this is what I was passionate about and that I could make it count in the long term. In hindsight, it is a decision I don’t regret at all.

3. Decided to reinvent and challenge myself to start over and do something new

?In 2009, after being with Edelweiss for 7 years, in what had been my dream role, I started getting the feeling that my work was getting to be very unidimensional. I aspired to build an organization and hoped to be a business leader someday. And when I spoke to my mentors, I got the feeling that my current role wouldn’t necessarily lead me in that direction. It is then that I decided to move to a client-facing role and from a well-established position to an almost uncertain one to build Edelweiss’ Wealth Management business. Interestingly enough, this choice too came with a sharp cut in compensation and for all the right reasons - I was fairly inexperienced in this area of the business and it was more of a start-up environment. Looking back on my last 10 years in this role, I can say that it has come with its own share of learnings and lessons. Today, I feel very proud that as a team we have been able to build one of the leading wealth management firms in the country.

Overall its been a great 20 years. In hindsight one can always say What if ? But I think evolving with time and taking risks has worked well for me.

The one advise that I can give to young people (including my teenage son) looking to build their careers is ….Every individual is unique; you must have the strength and conviction to follow through on your dreams, even if it means making some trade-offs.

The tough decisions are often not about what we can do, but about what we must give up in order to do it!