Kaniska Raj Sinha from the Indian Institute of Management, Indore is one of India's Most Promising Incoming MBA Students 2022!
The following is Kaniska Raj Sinha'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, Kaniska 's story and profile stood out. Here's his story in his words.
A self-driven, management aspirant seeking to utilize my skills & technical know-how by creating quality products & come up with faster process solutions. Professional growth-oriented mind-set & continual improvement in grades speak of flexible & innovative traits respectively.
Tell us more about your extracurricular achievements
1. Worked as Mess convener in the GET Hostel for batch of 300 GETs and ensured smooth & timely operation of the mess and verified food quality.
2. Volunteered as educator for two students of +2 level (both scored 90%) at Angel Xpress Foundation in East Andheri, Mumbai linked with RELIANCE FOUNDATION led by Mrs. Nita Ambani in 2020.
3. Student Head Coordinator of Annual Saraswati Puja of a batch of 1800 students (2014).
4. Class Head Boy of a batch of 84 students. (2015)5. Student head coordinator of Annual Quiz competition of both junior and senior division (2009-2016).6. Convenor of University Annual Blood Donation Camp of 180 donors. (2018)
Tell us about a time when you messed up, and what you learnt from the experience?
The biggest failure till date is I was unable to get into NDA. I was in my final year of my school when I sat for the exam. I cleared the aptitude test and qualified for the SSB interview round. For the first time, I realized that I was the black sheep in the herd. There were many more qualified folks around, many of them were state level or national players. Their personality and discipline inspired me. I soon realized that it was not my cup of tea. However those seven days had a deep impact in my life. My key learning was that there is no substitute to hardwork. Your dedication and passion will rewarded always. I focused on my life and career post that keeping these things in mind. I started exploring different things and started visualizing them with broader mindset.
Tell us something about yourself that others may be surprised to know about you.
I am a great poker player.I am whole blood donor.
What have been your two biggest successes in life? What did you learn from them?
My biggest achievement till date is working for Reliance Foundation. I volunteered as an education mentor for students. This was unique in lot of ways. I got to know about people from a different social strata. Their thought process, their way of living, approach towards life and to reach newer heights inspired me a lot. Their zeal of learning and fighting against all odds inspired me a lot. They taught why perseverance is important in life and how education can bring a change in their life.My second best success is to work with Nestle remotely. This helped me to enhance my communication skills and people skills. I contacted over 20 vendors in southern India which helped me to understand business at a great extent.
Professionally, what is your ideal image of yourself five years from now? Where do you see yourself?
I want to start something in the finance domain. Though its sketchy, it would basically a financial product in investment segment. So for that I want to get into sector, gain hands on experience and skills which would widen my thought horizon and given a clarity of the market demands. This would essentially help me finding my core strengths and build a rock solid bottom. This would time and again keep in right track and enlighten vision.
What is the one skill or characteristic you possess that you are most proud of, and why?
The most important strength of mine is my perseverance. During my summer internships in 2nd year and 3rd year of my under graduation, I got an opportunity to analyze data and find pattern trend. Though it was not something related to my undergraduate field of study, I grew interest in it. I had to work long hours and changed the model repeatedly due to errors made from my end. I approached every panel engineer and field engineer possible. Though it was a new thing to me, it helped me gain a huge knowledge and develop analytical skills. Post-Graduation, I got an opportunity to work as a virtual summer intern where these skills helped me to navigate the project and yield fruitful results.
In your opinion, what skills or qualities does a successful manager possess?
A successful manager is one who looks after his team as a father, guides them as pedagogue and shares their distress as a friend. The most important quality is perseverance and have faith on his team. He should try to treat his team members as fairly as possible. If in case he fails to deliver all these things, he should communicate and convince his/her team members about this and guide them to look for the bigger image.
Tell us about an ethical dilemma that you may have faced, and how you resolved it.
This is something that I faced a couple of months back. I was working on the Sandila project and I had vendor who was a hard nut to crack. He already had missed deadlines for various equipment deliveries. Whenever I tried to reach him, he used to ignore me. I was new in company then. So I visited his workshop. I kept calm and acknowledged that he might be going through some difficult times and how I can assist him in meeting deadlines. To me utter surprise he responded politely and informed about his issues. I talked with my project manager at site and he alleviated some of his work by deploying some of our own manpower.
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?
I would love to become a CEO of Tata Sons. The company has a historical legacy and is a prime pillar of Indian economy. My first step would be revive the lost glory of Tata. With this vision in mind, my aim would be to take Tata Neu app to its next level. It would be a one stop solution to mankind's all problems in the best way possible. It would cater solutions ranging from homecare to healthcare, lifestyle to livelihood.
Any Other Comments Or Factors You Would Like To Highlight About Yourself?
I am agile and quick learner. While working as a summer intern in Reliance Industries, I was assigned a project of instrumentation. Being a chemical engineer, I didnt have any experience of working in instrumentation domain. I shamelessly interacted with people and tried to gain most from it. It not only developed my personality but also enhanced my analytical and people skills. Same learnings and approach towards problems helped me to go through my project smoothly and land a PPO.