Career Checkpoint

In this episode, I talk to Aaditya Gutgutia, who works as a partner with Emerging India Value Advisory. He is someone who is a thorough-bred from the world of finance - an area that I have very little intimate knowledge of. So I did my own research on Aaditya and his upcoming book on Polycycle Investing before talking to him. In this chat, I learned about how he sees life as a series of 12-year cycles- each with a different role to play, his take on the woke culture and of course, Polycycle Investment. A chat with Aaditya would not have been complete without a reference to one of his big influences, Prof. Sanjay Bakshi. I learned a lot while recording this and hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

In this episode, I had a chat with Akshay Khanna, who is a Partner with Avasant and is the Global Lead, Avasant Labs. This was an interesting chat where I could pick Akshay’s brains about technology outsourcing, how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted global outsourcing decisions and what he thinks about the India story. We also spoke about the time when his  startup got acquired by PayTm and Akshay’s stint with PayTM coincided with the explosive growth PayTM had post Demonetization in 2016. It was a fun chat and I could find the right opportunity to pull his leg about a trip that he and Amit Didolkar who I did the first episode with, have been threatening to go on, for the last 15 years!

In this episode I have a chat with Sreedhar Prasad, who has over 20 years of global consulting experience with KPMG India, Middle East and Kalaari Capital. My conversation covered a wide range of topics and themes from curiosity to Chinese cuisine to what should parents do to help their children prepare them for their future. Sreedhar also shared his secret of how he keeps his sanity intact even when he is continuously traveling! 

In this episode, I talk to Vinayak Shenoy, Head of Marketing & Retail - Asia Pacific & Middle East Africa, Lenovo Mobile Business at Lenovo. Given the varied roles, countries, markets, industries that Vinayak has worked in, our conversation revolved around how he unlearns to learn about a new market or assignment. I also learned what he does when he feels overwhelmed by any situation and his take on what the moral job of marketers is in the Board room!

Rajat Jain works as Business manager for Maggi at Nestle India. One of the few folks from my batch at MDI Gurgaon, who is continuing with the same company that he joined from campus. The big takeaway for me was how important humility and learning are and how Rajat has developed some eclectic interests outside a typical high-flying corporate job and how he likes to learn how to appreciate these interest areas.

Amit is a friend from MDI Gurgaon and has worked in Technology sales roles for various small and big organisations for the last many years. In this chat, I learned about how he prepares for sales meetings, what he considers the greatest source of knowledge and what he would have been doing if he wasn’t doing sales.