ZIKR Alumni Interactions
Volume 3, Issue 2
‘Coffee with Alumni’ with Industry Stalwarts
Ms Jyotsna Singh Mr Sanjay D’Souza
On receiving an overwhelming response from the batch, the Alumni Committee
Mr Shanoj Subramanian
was privileged to organize three more sessions of ‘Coffee with Alumni’ (CWA).
Mr Mahesh Balasubramanian
Ms Jyotsna Singh, Executive Vice President & Head - Multinational Business, Kotak Mahindra Bank
Mr Sanjay D’Souza, Senior Vice President, HDFC Bank
Mr Mahesh Balasubramanian, Senior Executive Vice President at Kotak Mahindra Bank
Inside this issue: CWA : Ms Jyotsna
2
Sankalp’ 13
2
CWA : Mr Sanjay D’Souza
2
SIM’ergence’ 13
3
Guest Lecture : Mr Shanoj Subramanian
4
CWA : Mr Mahesh Balasubramanian
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Volume 3, Issue 2
Coffee with Alumni : Ms Jyotsna Singh The Alumni Committee continued its efforts to improve the alumni-student interaction by organizing its second „Coffee with Alumni' session on 4th March 2013. It was a golden opportunity for 10 students of SIMSREE batch of 2012-14, to interact with Ms Jyotsna Singh, alumna of 1992 batch and Executive Vice President & Head - Multinational Business, Kotak Mahindra Bank during the second session of „Coffee with Alumni‟ – an initiative by the alumni committee. Ms Singh shared her extensive corporate journey by touching upon various topics of finance domain viz. treasury, corporate finance, life insurance, retail banking etc. She talked about her brief stint with Tata Finance and continued with her varied experiences in Kotak Mahindra Bank. She also explained the concepts and prospects of Investment Banking, NBFCs and priority sector lending while clearing the doubts of the students. It was an immense learning experience for the students and they had valuable takeaways from it. We are definitely looking forward to have more such interactions in the future.
Sankalp’ 13 The SSR Committee at SIMSREE organized Sankalp 2013, an inter-collegiate competition, on International Women’s Day. The event proceeded with the first hand narration of the 26/11 terror attacks of Mumbai by Mr Vishwas Nangare Patil, IPS officer and addl. Commissioner of police (West zone). He explicitly described his experience of that gloomy day as he was one among the very few armed policemen who were present at Café Leopold within the very first hour of the firing, who pursued the four attackers inside the Taj Mahal Palace and Towers Hotel. The words that he spoke skimmed the souls of every one present. Following which Mrs Nisreen Mamaji, alumna of Batch 1985 and proprietor at Moneyworks took on the stage to educate and inspire the female to invest wisely.
Mrs Usha Laxman, Director at Muktangan and daughter in law of the well renowned cartoonist Mr R K.Laxman instructed the audience about the activities which are carried out at Mutangan. Muktangan is an initiative of Paragon Charitable Trust, a pioneering educational programme with an innovative model, working in close partnership with the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai. Later, „Kalpana‟ the case study competition was initiated. The case was based on REAP - “Reach Education Action Programme” (a Mumbai based NGO) which was born out of a need to combat illiteracy and ensure every child is in school. Lastly, Mr Alyque Padamsee, an Indian theater personality, ad film maker and CEO of AP Advertising Pvt. Ltd. came to address the spectators on his initiative about the Zero Tolerance Campaign for Sexual Harassment against women. The event was very well organized by the SSR Committee. SIMSREE applauds the efforts put in by each and everyone to make the event a great success. Page 2
Volume 3, Issue 2
Coffee with Alumni : Mr Sanjay D'souza The Alumni Committee was highly privileged to organize the third session of „Coffee with Alumni‟ on 14th March 2013 with Mr Sanjay D’Souza ,Senior Vice President, HDFC Bank. It was an enriching session in terms of knowledge and guidance. A vibrant and dynamic personality, Mr D‟Souza is an illustrious alumnus of 1992 batch. “Give importance to your strengths and don't invest your time and energy in overcoming your weaknesses”, advises Mr D‟Souza. He emphasized that networking is the key to climb up the ladder of success and asked the students to interact with people. Mr D‟Souza brought up his youth times anecdotes and created an aura of fun with learning. The students utilized this opportunity and asked an entire gamut of questions from work life balance to financial literacy. The students were delighted to interact with Mr D'Souza and learnt various concepts in the domain of banking & finance sector.
Guest Lecture : Mr Shanoj Subramanian On 16th of March 2013, the Alumni Committee was fortunate to have Mr Shanoj Subramanian as an esteemed guest at Sydenham Institute of Management to enlighten the students on basics of trade finance. He is currently the Associate Vice President at Dhanlaxmi Bank. Mr Shanoj was accompanied by Mr Sachin Tendulkar, alumnus of 2002 batch and Divisional Manager - Global Financial Institutions Group at Dhanlaxmi Bank Mr Shanoj started with explaining the different roles played by any bank. Later, he discussed the types and importance of trade. He spoke about basic concepts of trade like cross border trade, trade settlement methods and risks involved in trade. Further, Mr Shanoj explained the Letter of Credit Cycle in detail. He also highlighted the different areas of business in trade namely imports, exports and domestic. It was a great learning experience for the students as they got valuable insights on various concepts of trade finance.
Coffee with Alumni : Mr Mahesh Balasubramanian The Alumni Committee organised the fourth 'Coffee with Alumni' session on 20March-2013 with one of our SIMAA Directors Mr Mahesh Balasubramanian, alumnus of 1992 Batch and currently the Senior Executive Vice President at Kotak Mahindra Bank. The journey traversed by Mr Balasubramanian was along a wide array of industries starting from Heavy engineering at Godrej Industries to his latest foray into the banking sector as the Executive Vice President at Kotak Mahindra Bank. The students took the opportunity of asking a plethora of questions ranging from his managerial life to banking and finance. The students were enlightened and inspired by the journey treaded by Mr Balasubramanian and with this the alumni committee concluded another successful session of „Coffee with Alumni‟.
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Volume 3, Issue 2
SIM'ergence 13 The Corporate Relations Committee at SIMSREE organised its annual business conclave SIM'ergence 13 based on the theme „Shifting Focus: Rural India‟ with the objective of capturing the views and ideas of industry stalwarts on rural markets and understanding the role that they will play in fostering inclusive economic growth in future. The conclave was held at the BSE International Convention Hall on Wednesday, March 13 and was graced by a number of eminent personalities from corporate India. The Guest of Honor was Mr Mangal Prabhat Lodha, an MLA from the Malabar Hill Constituency and the Founder Chairman of Lodha Developers, one of the leading real estate developers in the country. The event was inaugurated by Dr. M.A. Khan - Former Director of SIMSREE, Mr Lodha - MLA from the Malabar Hill Constituency and the Founder Chairman of Lodha Developers, and Mr Ashish Chauhan - MD and CEO of the BSE
Later, Mr Anshuman Singh, Managing Director & CEO, Future Supply Chain Solutions Ltd, spoke about the need to reduce regional disparities and bridge the gap between urban and rural India. The keynote speech for the event was delivered by Mr Anil Kamath, founder Chairman of Esemcee Advisers and a former Managing Director at Wockhardt Hospitals. Mr Ajit Menon, Executive Vice President and Head – Sales at DSP BlackRock Investment Managers Pvt. Ltd. was the Corporate Speaker at the event. Given the increasing importance that is being given to rural empowerment through financial inclusion, the afternoon session commenced with a panel discussion on „Future of the Indian Banking Industry – Financial Inclusion and Improvement in Payment Infrastructure‟. The panelists for the event were Mr Bharat Sampat, CFO at Development Credit Bank, Mr Malcolm Athaide, President at Yes Bank, Ms. Dipti Kataria, Country Head of Global Payments, a JV with HSBC and Mr Sanjay Sinha, Founder of Citrus Advisers. The discussion which was moderated by Mr Kunal Pande, Partner at KPMG, revolved around developing commercially viable solutions to provide banking services to the unbanked at an affordable cost. The second discussion aimed at understanding the effectiveness of various rural marketing campaigns in an attempt to analyse the approach, tools, skills and strategies required to be successful in rural markets. The topic for discussion was „Measuring Marketing Effectiveness – Looking Back to Rural Areas‟ and the panel consisted of eminent corporates like Mr Ravi Rao, Leader, South Asia at Mindshare and alumnus of Batch 1985, Mr Kewal Handa, Former MD at Pfizer Limited (Moderator), Mr Pradeep Lokhande, CEO at Rural Relations, Mr Anand Pejawar, Executive Director – Marketing, SBI Life Insurance Co Ltd and Dr. Vinod Juneja, MD at Binani Cement. All in all, SIM‟ergence 13 was a grand success. The constant support and guidance of our Director Dr. Khan along with the faculty members was also instrumental in ensuring that the entire event went off smoothly. Page 4
Volume 3, Issue 2