On the evening of 23rd July 2017, that is when I joined JBIMS. And all I could see is a 5 storey red building with a lack luster infrastructure. But little did I know that I would soon be falling in love with this red building. A few days later I was discussing with my senior as to how would I manage to learn and groom myself in this environment with very limited resources and infrastructure. He simply smiled at me carefree stating the fact that this was not the first time he was listening to these remarks and I knew he is ready to change my perception.
“Built in the financial hub of India in 1967 this building still stands tall with pride and many great scholars and eminent personalities recognize its metal. But most importantly it will teach you humbleness. Humbleness in the fact that you are maybe in one of the most premiere institutions but it still lacks basic resources. Accept it and do your best to fulfill that gap in whichever way you can because at the end of the day a college is as great as its Alumni are. This small building will bring very diverse minds from across India and keep you in a closed packed room where you have to fight one another even to make a place to sit for yourself or over a book which you couldn’t get it in the library. This will bring you guys closer, come out those isolated walls built around you and learn from one another and in the process this college will teach you how to survive and do your best with bare minimum resources. Most importantly the best companies in the word that are going to visit your campus soon are not going to judge you based on the campus infrastructure but solely based on your intellect and capabilities“, one senior said to me. I immediately realized how wrong I was to judge my college based on its outlook.
Based on upbringing and my experiences in JBIMS, I would love to work for a personality like Mr. A. Balasubramanian,CEO of Aditya Birla Sun Life Asset Management Company Limited, who too had a very humble beginning and from what I have read he still has a quality of work late hours and people who know him closely say he is still a fund manager at heart and He took charge of it when mutual fund industry was still at its nascent stage. He too worked with limited resources which was just a group of 25 people, steered the company from the financial crisis and turned it into one of the most successful Asset management company. He and his team achieved the mark of managing Rs 20 lakh crore assets under management right before the target date. Being part of this firm would give me the opportunity to learn a lot from his 26 years of experience in the Mutual Fund industry and be a successful portfolio manager myself.
Not only this industry offers enormous learning of various different sectors but also the mutual industry itself has shown tremendous potential and is one of the fastest growing industries in India. There had been more than 30% growth last year and based on a paper presented by Mr. A. Balasubramanian this industry will be Rs 95 lakh crore by 2025. With this tremendous potential for learning and growth, I would love to be part of this organization and enrich my experiences.
- Siddharth Jain
Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies