With seven years of rich experience in financial services industry and after having served in a senior managerial position

in one of Indias leading brokerage firms, I want to return to the academic world to expand my horizons and gain in depth knowledge of my chosen field. During this tenure, I have had the opportunity to work across the spectrum in areas like retail advisory, research, institutional broking, proprietary trading, structured products, and portfolio and risk management. Born to a school teacher and housewife in small town of Ujjain, there were certain core values that were inculcated at very early stage in my life. Discipline, socially responsible behaviour and trying to find solution for challenging circumstances were the key ones. After completing my graduation in computer science engineering, many of my friends went straight into various MBA programs. But I had set myself a goal of gaining at least five years of experience before I embark on my journey for any kind of MBA program. I started my career with Reliance Infocomm as Network engineer. Over time and introspection, I realized my acumen for analysis and research and switched to financial services domain. I stepped into this field as a retail advisor with HDFC Securities and moved onto institutional broking and research. Transition to Sharekhan Limited marked the next big step in my career as I began my foray into structured products. The next step up was advancing to proprietary trading, portfolio management and risk management with Motilal Oswal securities where I got opportunities to apply my learning and at the same time was exposed to new arenas and entrusted with team leadership. Although I had planned of going for MBA a little earlier in my career but family commitments made it almost impossible to pursue any full time course. After sorting things on that front and achieving financially stability, now I feel is the right time to initiate my MBA program as I believe that my rich professional experience when merged with academic knowledge will catapult my career to a new high. My Engineering background has given a strong foundation to my analytical skills. Graduating in computer engineering, the natural choice was to take up coding job in a big IT company. When I started out with Reliance Infocomm, I liked my job and envisioned my career going from trainee engineer to a project manager. Around that time, most of my colleagues were investing their money in stocks and they also prompted me to do the same. As I enjoyed research and was eager to apply my knowledge, I made some quick money myself by trading and most of my colleagues started depending on me for my advice on investing. I quickly realized that both my passion and aptitude lay elsewhere. To start off, I took the job in advisory position at HDFC Securities which was the best way to understand how markets operate. Commuting to workplace took me long hours. Travelling and continuous focus on new subject was intellectually and physically challenging. But time management during my tenure at HDFC Securities went on to enhance my efficiency and multi-tasking abilities. In the 6 months of my stay I learnt the lifecycle of trading and nuances of reporting to clientele. Most of my recommendations to the clients were going right and I was well

appreciated for that. So much so that when I left HDFC to further advance my career in Sharekhan, many clients of HDFC had asked me to remain their advisor even after I changed my company. In Sharekhan I was awarded top advisor of the year. The management rewarded me by shifting me from HNI advisory to proprietary fund management. From then onwards it was all about making money in private as my job involved taking huge financial positions. I initially managed fund size of INR 1Cr .My goal was generating consistent returns and beating government yields. I could have added more value to myself and the organization had the company given me more funds to manage, but due to risk averse nature of the firm they decided to focus more on retail broking and less on proprietary trading. If there was one thing that I had learnt all along was that the bigger your funds size the bigger your growth. So I switched to Motilal Oswal Ltd where I got opportunity to manage INR 30 Cr and I soon scaled it to INR 100 Cr in 2 years. Motilal Oswal is a very conservative and zero debt company and to handle such kinds of amount on their proprietary book requires very serious dedication and efforts. I have managed almost every aspect of fund management from portfolio designing to trading to risk handling. I am also tasked to lead and mentor junior resources of the team. On personal front, I enjoy collecting good books irrespective of the subject. Be it fiction or non-fiction. Whenever there are book fair in the city I always make it a point to visit there and collect books at best possible deals. In fact, one bedroom of my house is filled entirely with books. A year ago, I had also started a neighbourhood library using my huge collection of books. Although I could have collected good amount of money by charging subscription fees but the central idea was to promote the reading culture especially in children. So I provided free access to my library. Being fond of chess, I used this platform to provide chess lessons to school kids who visited my library. This activity for couple of hours every evening gave me immense pleasure and rejuvenated my energy levels. My decision of not pursuing MBA right after my graduation has proven to be right for me. My work experience has provided strong foundations in financial services domain, teamwork, leadership and cross functional level of communication skills. At this juncture in my career, I would like to deepen my expertise and broaden my perspectives. I have chosen to apply for Post Graduate Program for Executives from Indian Institute of Calcutta as the institute is ranked amongst 3 premier management institutes in India and the course duration of one year suits my requirement of not having to leave work life for a very long period. IIM-C has reputation of producing talents who are top leaders and decision makers in their respective organizations. Such an experience under the close guidance of highly qualified faculty will broaden my perspective to face challenges in the global industry. Contemporary syllabus and case study based learning approach of IIM-C will help me understand real world applications of theoretical concepts. Industry Internship program will provide practical opportunity to put my learning to solve complex business problems. The other area of

importance to my goals is international exposure. The International Project and study tour provides unique platform to interact with globally renowned faculty and a diverse student community and develop interpersonal skills and comfort on a global scale. IIM Calcutta is thus my most preferred destination pursing an M.B.A program.