In our list of India's Best 50 - the 50 Most Employable Students from the Class of 2020-22, we feature MBA students who have walked that extra mile and done that little more to stand out! One of those featured in today's story, Ekmun Singh Gulati, has shown an incredible amount of passion to achieve his true potential. Read on and find out his story!
The following are Ekmun Singh Gulati’s set of responses to a questionnaire floated amongst MBA graduates to determine the top-50 Most Employable MBA Graduates of the Class of 2022. Amongst the massive number of entries and responses being evaluated, Ekmun's story and profile stood out. Here's his story in his own words.
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'm by nature a shy person. I do not find it comfortable to ask for help easily and reaching out to people whom you've never talked to before always seemed like a point that bothered me. I wanted to get rid of that fear and at the same time wanted to contribute to my college, IIM Calcutta. Hence, I stood for elections for the post of MBA Representative which is basically an elected position to represent the two batches of MBA and liaise with the MBA office to make the experience of MBA more enriching. There was intense competition with speculation initially that up to 15 candidates are thinking of running for the post. I had to make my move early and get in touch with as many people as I could to put my name out there and get advice from the senior batch on what improvements I could bring in if elected. I reached out to people I had never talked to before and initially this was way out of my comfort zone to go to random people and ask for their views. Then when the campaigning period did start I had to campaign to 960 students across two batches, which in itself was challenging. I worked really hard for these elections and when the results came in I was elated as all my work had paid off and I am currently an elected MBA Representative of the college.
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 think the last time someone relied on me can be said as the elections for the post of the MBA Representative because winning the elections meant the student body relied on me to take student matters to the competent authority and fight for those. They relied on me to represent them to the best of my capability and bring in improvements to the academic affairs of the college, to bring in more courses, more electives and a bouquet of options to choose from.
Tell us about a time when you disagreed with an opinion/idea/decision. What did you do about it?
In my 2nd job we had a process where we made reports based on the credit data and shared with the respective stakeholders for market insights and industry performances. This was almost a fortnightly report which updated the stakeholders with the credit data and enabled them to make business decisions. However, this process was very slow and resource-intensive, thus causing delay in changes to strategy and thus increasing costs. I told my supervisor about this but he insisted on continuing with the process. I disagreed with him and debated with him but to no avail as she thought it wouldn't be an effective enough solution. I decided to take matters into my own hand and designed a portal in collaboration with one of the bureau data companies to automate the process and eliminate scheduled reports with the dynamic portal serving as a one-stop repository for all the market insights needed by the respective stakeholders. The process was faster, cleaner and more accurate due to the on-time data integration. My supervisor was impressed by the work done and complimented my decision making.
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?
I'm a huge fan of Manchester United. This has led me to research a lot about the history of the club and has showed me what all the club has gone through. Resultantly, I took Sports Marketing as a subject in my MBA. I absolutely loved that subject because I could relate so much to it. We had 4 assignments in that subject and I always enjoyed completing them as it was in the are of maximum interest of mine. I feel if given the opportunity I would like to work in the niche area of sports management because in India it is still in its early stages but outside India the opportunity is huge and the market is just growing at an astonishing pace.
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?
If I had 10 million dollars, I wouldn't live a very lavish lifestyle. Because I have been drilled with a savings first habit since childhood by my parents. I will donate 10 percent of the corpus first to charities and social work to give back to society. 70 percent of corpus will be invested in a wide portfolio involving real estate, share and equity market etc, to have steady and firm returns. Then using those returns, 10 percent of them will keep going to charities. 20 percent of the corpus I will give to my parents to spend how they see fit. Probably, will buy them a house with a percentage of that. But majorly will leave it up to my parents.
Read the stories of the other Employable Graduates here!