“I believe that life is not a bed of roses, but a path to struggle and strive, those who can endure come out victorious, others are left behind far from their dreams glorious. I have lived by this quote throughout my life. I believe that hard work reaps the fruits in the long run - it always has, and it always will. People who wait for their stars to shine will probably never shine in this world.
I am Abhishek Jain, a National winner and runner up in a lot of b-school competitions during my MBA at JBIMS. Even received a lot of PPIs (Few prominent ones in the Investment Banking space - o3 Capital, Allegro Advisors, Axis Capital). My competitive exam scores are:
GRE: 325/340
TOEFL: 110/120 (Scored in the Top Bracket in all the sections of English proficiency skills)
CMAT: 99.61 percentile
NMAT: 99th Percentile
MBA CET: 99.96 percentile
I have done a lot of certifications (FLIP and Finshiksha) and have achieved All India Ranks (Top 3) in most of them - with participants from 100+ B-Schools across India. I also have my own YouTube Channel, with a subscriber base of 4200+ and a total viewership of 1.6 lakh+. I am trained in Professional Dancing from Shiamak Davar’s Institute for the Performing Arts (SDIPA).”
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Name an instance where you wanted something and went out of your comfort zone to achieve it OR Tell us the biggest risk you have taken so far in your life.
“I thought of an MBA and landed at JBIMS in 2018. I wasn't sure on the specialization, but I liked numbers so started studying Finance. I did get intimidated by the fact that there were people around me who knew a lot, and here I was planning to start from scratch to compete with them. I was practically a zero. However, I did some research on stuff that I could do. CFA was the buzzword (Though people around me said that it won't be possible with an MBA). I was confused as to whether to do it or not (Registered for the Dec'18 attempt anyway). I started small with a FLIP certification to get a hang on the basics (Stood AIR 1 in their National Challenge), and also did a Financial Modeling course. That gave me some confidence. Had started some of my CFA L1 prep too.
Come summer internship process and I landed into an investment banking firm. This seemed fun until now. It was the end of October 2018, and L1 was about to come and so were my college exams - my exams clashed with my CFA (Still remember staying up crazy late at night to study CFA, and then getting up really early to study for the exams scheduled in the afternoon). Well I was sleep deprived but I had it in me to give it all. The end result - cleared my college exams and CFA L1 with very good scores.”
When was the last time someone relied on you? OR What did you do which was purely for someone else - a truly selfless act.
“I have a friend in my b-school. He was going through a tough time since his father abandoned his family. His mother could earn just enough to sustain herself and help in some household chores. He reached out to me, asking for some financial help since he was in big trouble. I listened to his story and was saddened by the crisis he was facing. I did give him some money, to take care of his day to day expenses.
This however made me realize that a lot of us are highly privileged. I mean we have good parents, we are financially sound, and still we keep on complaining about stuff. Instances like these make us realize the privilege that we have and makes us feel grateful for what we have.”
Tell us about a time when you disagreed with an opinion/idea/decision. What did you do about it?
“My friend & I, at JBIMS, were the National Finalists for Tata Steelathon (a b-school competition). While preparing the final deck, we had an argument about the way we should present one of the ideas that we were pitching for Tata steel to digitize their communication framework. I was of the opinion that we should make a good 1-minute video from scratch. He didn't want to take that much effort since the deadline was approaching. However, I convinced him and did prepare the video from scratch and we both loved it. The video was much appreciated during the finale, and the managers actually thought of implementing the idea in their communication ecosystem. This was probably owing to the fact that we presented it in a visually appealing manner.”
What is the one thing you can claim to have some level of expertise or depth of knowledge in - it could be anything - a subject, a sport, a hobby, a venture, an initiative which has led you to do deep work in that field?
“There are 2 subjects that I actually believe I have gained some expertise on - Valuation and Corporate Finance. I would owe a big chunk of it to Sir Aswath Damodaran - he is the ultimate guru in the fields of valuation, investment and business finance. I have seen all his content on YouTube and the content is of utmost premium quality. The clarity that I have on concepts pertinent to the 2 subjects is absolute gold. I was recommended to watch Mr. Damodaran's content by my b-school professor and I owe it to him big time. I have actually started a blog too wherein I post all my learnings to help the upcoming finance enthusiasts.”
If 10 Million Dollars (approximately INR 75 Crores) is given to you to use it any way you deem fit what would you do with this corpus?
“I actually aspire to have my own PMS (Portfolio Management Service). I plan to open one once I earn enough to be able to have my own PMS service. If I get an amount of the size of $10 million, then I would run a fund wherein I would invest in all the markets (FICC, Equities, Real Estate). I have been reading a ton of stuff relevant to Value investing (big fan of Benjamin Graham and Warren Buffett). I want to become an investor who is bigger than the likes of Rakesh Jhunjhunwala and Shivanand Mankekar, by using my own strategies that I have been honing for a while now.”
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Comments
Eric Fernandes
Isn't the guy you helped in his "tough times" the same one who duped many of your classmates into giving him money by selling the same story and used it to play poker?
31 Aug 2020, 02.41 PM