Anmol Panwar from Faculty of Management Studies, Delhi is one of India's Most Promising Incoming MBA Students 2022!
The following is Anmol Panwar's set of responses to a questionnaire floated amongst incoming MBA graduates to determine the top-50 Most Promising Incoming MBA students of 2022. Amongst the massive number of entries and responses being evaluated, Anmol 's story and profile stood out. Here's his story in his words.
Anmol Panwar is an aeronautics graduate, he has represented the university football team at Jamia Millia Islamia where he was also the Head of the Event Committee for my department. The most important lesson he learnt from the aviation industry can be found in an airplane lavatory on a 2 by 1 inch sticker that says "Lets leave this place better than we found it for the person coming in after us" and that is my guiding vision for wherever I go.
Tell us more about your extracurricular achievements
I represented the university football team for Jamia Millia Islamia which competes in the university nationals tournament in from the North Zone, having played football competitively for over half a decade it was a surreal opportunity to share the pitch with some of the finest talent in the country. Being given the opportunity to head the event committee for my department was another experience in team management, while football taught me teamwork and chemistry, event planning taught me collaboration and coordination, making my learnings in team management wholistic and multidimensional.
Tell us about a time when you messed up, and what you learnt from the experience?
Like everyone else I've had a lot of mess-ups in life, one that sticks with me was the one in June 2019 at Triund, the region was seeing the worst storm it had seen in years and we were advised not to go trekking, but I somehow pursued my group of friends to go on the trek regardless. Making the mistake of not assessing the risk and not having a contingency plan on top of that, we were stuck in a hail storm inside a small collapsed tent for 4 hours and by a miracle escaped without any major injuries. The experience taught me to always make decisions after assessing all risks and setting contingency plans in place.
Tell us something about yourself that others may be surprised to know about you.
I was obese till the age of 15, I also let this get to my head and had low confidence and self-esteem. That was until I discovered football, I dedicated hours and hours into practice and football helped me emerge as the confident and bold individual I am proud of being today. An individual who wouldn't recognize himself could he look 7 years into the future at 15 years old.
What have been your two biggest successes in life? What did you learn from them?
My two biggest successes in life were cleaning and restoring a local park and teaching English to the support staff of my school, both of these were part of a 5 year life skill and leadership programme that I was part of. These successes and the programme taught me a lot of valuable life lessons such as respect and understanding for people that have skills that are different than ours, how crucial it is to take care of our surroundings and how we can work towards making them more welcoming visually as well as functionally for all.'
Professionally, what is your ideal image of yourself five years from now? Where do you see yourself?
Professionally, I see myself leading a marketing team five years from now, running campaigns that not only bring about conversions and sales for my organization but also positive social changes in society through effective messaging. My aim is to be an asset to the organization I join and at the same time giving back to society because it is because of the collective effort of the society that I have the chance of being who I am today.
What is the one skill or characteristic you possess that you are most proud of, and why?
My people skills. I do not mean to be boastful, but I can put anyone to ease by connecting rather than just communicating. And being a management student, I feel that it is one of the most important skills I possess because there is no such job where I would not be required to deal with clients, superiors, subordinates, team, and colleagues on a daily basis. It becomes extremely important to understand people if we want to work with them, and while knowledge is very crucial, more crucial is effectively transferring and conveying our thoughts to people. Also understanding them better than we are expected to, comes a long way in building long-lasting relationships.
In your opinion, what skills or qualities does a successful manager possess?
In my opinion a successful manager is a great leader, the manager needs to possess very strong communication and interpersonal skills, and be empathetic and understanding of the pressures as well as goals and needs of not only their employees but also their bosses. A manager is one that delegates responsibility, leads by example and contributes to the growth of the firm not only through their own work but also through enhancing the work of their team members.
Tell us about an ethical dilemma that you may have faced, and how you resolved it.
The first ethical dilemma I ever faced, was when I found a large amount of cash in school in the 8th standard. I was childishly excited, tempted to go on a shopping spree at the school canteen with the money and see what to do with the rest of it later, but once I was done reacting to the found treasure I realized that I had to do the right thing and I handed the money over to my class teacher. The good deed did not go unpaid and I was praised by the principal which I think was the reason that this event became the reference point for me for all future dilemmas and encouraged me to do the right thing ever since, which is also the reason why I am stating such an old incident.
If you were the CEO of any company of your choosing, which company would you choose and what would your first action be as CEO?
If I were to be the CEO of any company I would choose Twitter to bring about substantial changes in the platform. With growing penetration of social media, it has become a driving force for society itself, such influence has the risk of being misused and need for filtering user engagement on the platform to get rid of toxic, offensive or provocative content has been something that has been brought up by school kids, professional athlete, politicians and governments alike. My aim would be to create a zero tolerance system for bullying, intentional misinformation, discrimination and various other issues.