Thunderbird Personal Essay - What international and cross-cultural background will you bring to Thunderbird and how will those past experiences add value to your classmates from around the world? Furthermore, what are your career aspirations immediately after graduation from Thunderbird and later in your long-term career path? How and why will a Thunderbird degree (combined with your past educational and professional experiences) enable you to achieve these objectives?

My Contribution to Thunderbird Classroom

The virtues of punctuality, importance of making the right decision in a business and the life changing implication of some of our actions has honed me to be a successful businessman with a progressive and positive mentality. Growing up in a family full of successful professionals from fields as diverse as medicine, social service, engineers, entrepreneurs, finance experts as well as politicians has helped me to observe their  roles and responsibilities from a very close quarter. This kept me abreast with the latest happenings in diverse fields.

Add to this my diverse, in depth, hands on business experience in – real estate, education and automobile sectors and a sound interpretation of financial management gained from working alongside astute chartered accountants has enabled me to come up with innovative ideas in critical situations. I believe I would be a valuable teammate, as my experiences combined with their experiences would help us evolve to become better professionals.

India being a land of  diverse culture and home to countless religion, customs and traditions have germinated a desire in me to learn about varied cultures. The fact that I would now be mingling with students from all parts of the globe adds to my enthusiasm or learning newer cultures.  Having friends from different cultural backgrounds gave wings to my desires to know more about different traditions and customs. While at school, I was part of the school’s team and have toured different parts of the country. My passion for the game gave me international exposure. My encounters have raised my awareness and sensitivity to different cultures. Travelling to Australia for Cricket tournaments as part of the sports-cum-cultural exchange with Australian families playing host has molded me into an individual more accepting of and receptive to change. I desire to leave a positive impact on my team members and be equally inspired with their experiences.

My leadership skills helped me take the sole responsibility of leading a team of 50 individuals on an election campaign for State Assembly Elections where I was involved in preparing election manifestos, stringent budget computing, extensive surveys, organizing public and party workers rallies and meetings, advertising and print and electronic media management. This enriching experience has heightened my understanding of societal problems, market research, people management and strategizing thus evolving my team player capabilities. This experience also helped me to sharpen my understanding of delegating responsibilities thereby raising the productivity of one’s time. Organizing fashion shows and cultural events within my institute has compounded my awareness of budgetary constraints and accustomed me to working to produce quality results irrespective of finances available. I am confident about being a valuable source of knowledge to my classmates with the rich expertise I have in hand.

Career Aspirations:

My long-term career goal is to diversify and expand my family businesses. My aim would be to develop strategies to amplify human potential thus raising the productivity of time invested with the primary emphasis on globalizing our real estate business and educational institute. To be one of the globally recognized brands in the business I would ensure that our business managers, faculty members are on par with their global counterparts. This endeavour would help the students to secure placements with leading global professional establishments. My personal and professional responsibilities are bound to drive me to excel and stand apart from my competitors. I would strive to grow the business in a manner, which is conducive to not only to my employees but their immediate family members. In the future, as a part of my social responsibility, I wish to set up a charitable institute that focuses on imparting scholarships to brilliant minds with otherwise limited resources, and offering medical help to the underprivileged.

Value Addition with a Thunderbird Degree:

Pursuing a Master’s at Thunderbird will gift me the chance to network with a set of uniformly motivated careerists in addition to widening my understanding of the functioning of global business establishments. Theoretical knowledge combined with practical knowledge will propel my proficiency in elucidating complex concepts and enable their successful implementation. The opportunity to study under academic luminaries comprising of internationally renowned management experts will enlighten me on how to invest my time intelligently in managing business needs besides fortifying my understanding of business practices needed to climb up the corporate ladder. International networks forged will keep me in sync with current business trends worldwide thus allowing me to diversify into commercially and economically viable spheres in addition to illuminating me on the art of establishing better systems to aid the growth rate of business ventures.

Why Thunderbird:

Thunderbird is a brand in itself and its ranking is amongst the top business schools internationally in communion with primary emphasis on churning out visionary entrepreneurs only beefs up my resolve to be a part of the program. Thunderbird’s belief in collating interdisciplinary principles from various domains thus developing business modules that infuse efficiency and cost effectively besides instilling courage to take informed decisions is the prime motivating factor for me to study at this institute.

Babson defines entrepreneurship as 'thinking or acting in a manner that is opportunity obsessed, holistic in approach, and leadership balanced.' Please describe how, in your own experiences, you have met some or all of that definition.

Growing up in a family full of successful professionals from fields as diverse as medicine, social service, engineers, entrepreneurs, finance experts as well as politicians has helped me to observe their  roles and responsibilities from a very close quarter. This kept me abreast with the latest happenings in diverse fields. The virtues of punctuality, importance of making the right decision in a business and the life changing implication of some of our actions has honed me to be a successful businessman with a progressive and positive mentality. Add to this my diverse, in depth, hands on business experience in – real estate, education and automobile sectors and a sound interpretation of financial management gained from working alongside astute chartered accountants has enabled me to come up with innovative ideas in critical situations. I can gladly say that most of the companies I am involved with has taken a 360 degree turn after I joined them. When I joined them, the work structure was unorganized as most of the employees were from the labor class. I succeeded in shaping the work pattern so as to yield better work satisfaction to them as well as to the company.

My Experiences, Challenges and Learnings:

XYZ, my family owned business is a dealership company for Bajaj Auto Ltd. having turnover of 40 crores. We were involved in the sales and service of Bajaj bikes in our area of command. Before I joined it in 2008, my father’s said, “ Use your constructive imagination to find out how much more you can make out of the rupee before you try and find out how much little you can give for the rupee.” His words of wisdom have been eternally etched in my mind and have helped me shape a successful career for myself. With this tenet in my mind, I assumed responsibility of our diverse business ventures. Within a short span of 2 years, I was in a position to undertake complete control of our business endeavors. Today, 4 years down the line, I am solely responsible for the 40% growth it has achieved.

From 2008, I am with XYZ Women’s College as Director of the College. I ensured smooth functioning of the college by drafting and implementing more stringent guidelines for fee payment. This reduced the number of defaulters from 30% to 15% and was a booster to improve quality education.

At XYZ Women’s College, I also encountered one of the most challenging situations in my career. The management along with the student community were discussing the ouster of the HOD of Interior Designing in lieu of his perfunctory attitude toward syllabus completion resulting in a below par exam performance of students, coercing students into opting for personal tuition and iniquitous mismanagement. However, the HOD successfully managed to cajole 70% of the faculty to resign overnight. Faced with a crucial problem of imparting quality education to my students I had to cross all barriers in terms of hindrances like limited time, scouting for the right candidate and irate and nervous students as well as parents. The efficient handling of an emergency threatening to burgeon to volatile proportions wreaking havoc on the future of budding careerists was thus handled without panic. Calm, strategic and calculative assessment of the crisis allowed us to bring about a definitive change in the functioning of the institute. Currently, we a more refined and assiduous faculty.

Growth in any business is of paramount importance and this happened to be my primary motive when I joined XYZ  in 2008.  I re-defined the credit policies for sub dealers and customers adhering to stricter time lines, introduced more rigorous HR policies to downsize distribution of salary advances and laid down more conducive terms with accessories and exchange business partners alike which translated into more profitable sales generating a turnover of USD 10 million. 

My stint as Director at XYZ began in 2008. Here I learnt to be conservative in my approach with new partners and to safeguard our professional interests.  My strategies helped frame a better master planning of the new mixed-use real estate development project. I personally audited the company accounts and effected reversal of inappropriate expenses. This resulted in   reduction of loss from USD 250000 to USD 120000.This unhindered inflation took place primarily due to lack of monitoring from our end majorly because the project is in pre-launch stage.

In conclusion, the academic and practical structuring at Babson will help me deduce financial decision implications better, in turn enhancing my proficiency at handling the financial organization of my business. Babson will help me improve this figure with better systems besides facilitating better HR management, which will augment my ability to better all the above verticals of business.