Prakhar Raizada from the Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow is one of India's Most Promising Incoming MBA Students 2022!
The following is Prakhar Raizada'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, Prakhar 's story and profile stood out. Here's his story in her words.
Im Prakhar Raizada and I completed my schooling in Noida in 2015. After a series of very fortunate events, I secured a 100% scholarship to study Economics and Finance from the University of Hong Kong. I spent 4 years in HK and met people from various cultures and backgrounds. I decided to continue the academic journey and completed a Masters degree in Economics from University College Dublin. Afterwards, I joined Fitch Ratings as a Credit Analyst where I was a Lead Analyst in rating debt instruments for Large Corporate in the Industrials segment.
Tell us more about your extracurricular achievements
Believing in the wisdom of advanced prior preparation, I excelled at high school and university academic performance. In School, I was awarded the Best All-Rounder in 2013-14 and came second in the Space Settlement Design Competition at the Asian level. During this space settlement competition, I collaborated with student teams from Pakistan and China and presented our case for a settlement in space. Furthermore, I have also received scholarships for academic merit throughout my student life such as the 100% Tuition Scholarship from HKU (Amt - HKD584,000 or INR49,64,000), CV Starr Scholarship and, more recently, an entrance Scholarships at my Masters program. I was also placed on the Dean's Honors list in 2019-20.I have also had a taste of leadership experiences right throughout my student journey. At school, I was an Additional Cultural Secretary where I was a member of the core team that conducted various events in the school. Later at HKU, I was the Student Advisor for HKU Business School and mentored junior batches on a variety of issues. Furthermore, I lead the Student Ambassador program for Weava, an HK startup in the education industry. I was in charge of 20+ students from 5+ countries and increased the online and offline visibility of the product by conducting workshops, webinars and other activities. Besides, I also interviewed various stakeholders to understand the customer pain points.Apart from the aforementioned experiences, I was also part of a consulting club - Eureka Consulting Group (5 months in 2017) and was later promoted to the position of Head of Finance (11 months in 2018). There I successfully raised 6,000HKD funds for the club and was part of the team that conducted a pan-HK case competition. I also mentored two groups that were consulting for LVMH (Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy). Although I don't quiz regularly nowadays, at school, I won numerous quizzing competitions at the inter-school and district levels. My qualities as a team member of various student-run clubs and case competitions lead me to believe that I can spearhead activities, passionately involve myself in community initiatives, and work as a productive member of a project.
Tell us about a time when you messed up, and what you learnt from the experience?
Coming out of the protective environment at the home and then facing an academic failure and keeping up with the student cohort could be described as my biggest challenge. Coming to HKU as a freshman, I wasnt expecting the level of ruthless competition for the biggest opportunities on campus, be it for positions at the student club, or to get the top grade in courses. I faced my biggest academic failure yet when I could not meet my scholarship conditions in the first term. I was sort of lost at the lack of guidance and forgot to keep up-ing my game and to get even better after achieving a certain level of success.Instead of lamenting about my luck and blaming other people for my failures, I took this as an opportunity to rise from the ashes. After the relative fall in my academic performance in the first semester, I vowed to put even more effort into my academic input. Coupled with this relentless pursuit to perfect my attitude and study schedule, I also opened myself and talked to different people to understand the underlying cause and correct it. All these efforts resulted in a continuous increase in my academic results. I not only met all the scholarship conditions so that my scholarship was renewed for the next 4 years, but I also attained the Dean's List award in the final year for coming in the top 10% of the class in 2019-20.
Tell us something about yourself that others may be surprised to know about you.
People think of me as someone who is mentally strong, and confident with a penchant for going after traditional work experiences in Consulting and Investment Banking. However, I do have a side where I care about the people who are from underprivileged backgrounds. Secondly, I also know that a lot of my success is because of my upbringing and the privileged life that my parents provided me with. Therefore, to negate the benefits of a privileged background, I aim to open a school for less-privileged children and hope to accomplish it in the distant future. I have already made efforts to work on this aspect which is evident through my participation in the Teach for India program and being an academic fellow at WeLean at HKU. I was always interested in sharing knowledge with others in a variety of fields and the internship with TFI opened my eyes to the privileged position I had during my entire schooling life. When I have gathered enough resources and accomplished my personal goals, I would want to give back to society. I would like to think of myself as a combination of Henry Ford and Mother Teresa, wherein I would want to pursue my capitalist vision and put my interests first, but on the other hand, never be boastful of this privileged position. Taking advantage of a good conscience, I would certainly be very active in the education sector in any sort of capacity and try to make a small difference.
What have been your two biggest successes in life? What did you learn from them?
If I was asked to describe myself through a physical object, my answer would be an Encyclopedia as having diverse interests and a multifaceted approach. Throughout school, I was always involved in a variety of different initiatives. On one hand, I was part of the quiz club and secured numerous top 3 positions in competitions, while I was also part of the core team of the Student Council as Additional Cultural Secretary. Besides, I always maintained high performance in my academic scores. Therefore, one of the biggest achievements came when I received a 100% tuition fee scholarship from The University of Hong Kong (QS World Rankings 25th). The university recognized my all-around performance and duly awarded me the HKU Foundation Scholarship. I continued this performance in my undergraduate program as evidenced by the renewal of the scholarship for the 4 years from 2016 to 2020. Through this, I learned the importance of having a multi-faceted personality and the impact one can have on a diverse set of activities.My second achievement came when I secured a full-time offer to become a Credit Analyst at Fitch Ratings (India Ratings and Research). This was a front-end position where I was responsible for the credit rating of various debt instruments of various large corporates. I was responsible for the whole value chain, right from getting the data from the company, analyzing it and then presenting it to the Rating Committee. Even the rating rationale on the rating of the company was published in the market in my name. This was a significant achievement given that it was my first job and I had a steep learning curve while on the job. My mentors in the company along with my Team showed tremendous faith and guided me during my 13 months at the firm. While on a client case, I was consistently in touch and liaising directly with the client along with interacting with people at the CXO position. Through this experience, I learnt about the debt markets along with soft skills such as presenting to the senior directors as well as interacting with the senior management/promoters. I hope to build on this experience and join a consulting club so that I can help clients with various functions and not be limited to a particular segment.
Professionally, what is your ideal image of yourself five years from now? Where do you see yourself?
My academic experiences have cultivated innovative aptitude, technical knowledge along with professionalism and enhanced leadership qualities. I have been able to keep up with the intensity of the program at HKU, and UCD, and this has moulded me into a hard-working and diligent student. Post-MBA, I would want to join strategy consulting and help clients in various work industries and functions. I believe, that MBB would provide a steep learning curve and I would get to experience working in diverse industries and then help clients on various strategic initiatives. I would, ideally, want to grow and become a partner at an MBB and hence 5 years down the line, I would want to be on an accelerated career path in my firm where I am not only contributing to the analysis but also helping develop relationships and bringing in new clients. Furthermore, I see myself driving business and growth for the organization and having an in-depth understanding of the industry as well as having a great camaraderie with relevant stakeholders. Having said that, I would also like to be balanced in all aspects of my life along with my contribution to giving back to society.
What is the one skill or characteristic you possess that you are most proud of, and why?
Since the first semester at HKU, I have continuously put in efforts to keep improving on my previous performance and increasing the bar of perfection that I set for myself. On a personal level, this attribute of constant change in the positive direction is the most important thing to me. I believe by doing this I make a much more substantial difference to whatever project or work that is assigned to me. I am in a better position to drive the projects and have a greater impact on the result. In addition, this exercise not only improves the result but also gives me a platform to create a positive, lasting impact on people around me. By constantly putting in the effort to raise the level and work hard towards a goal, I have taken a central role in the projects and student-run clubs as evidenced by our teams semi-final entry in the HKFBS CSR case competition and the smooth running of Eureka Consulting Group for a year at HKU. In addition, I have also successfully launched the initial Student Ambassador program for Weava as part of my course on venture management. I was tasked with improving the visibility of a start-up called Weava on social media platforms and led a group of 20+ individuals from 5+ nationalities. This was a very enriching experience that taught me the importance of working in a team setting and an opportunity to start a project from scratch.
In your opinion, what skills or qualities does a successful manager possess?
A successful manager should have a diverse set of hard and soft skills. Firstly, he/she should be a great leader who not only knows how to get the work done but also motivates the team members to perform according to their potential. Having an approachable personality along with multi-tasking ability is also essential for a successful manager. These people skills would allow the relevant stakeholders to connect with the manager and also translate into getting new clients/business for the firm. Furthermore, he/she should be considerate, empathetic, pathetic and at the same time have a long-term vision given that most strategic level projects have longer timelines and incremental output takes time. Lastly, another quality in a successful manager is integrity given that the person should be able to lead by example and be mindful of their actions. A person with authority combined with integrity would be able to delegate tasks and correctly approach every project.
Tell us about an ethical dilemma that you may have faced, and how you resolved it.
I worked as a Credit Analyst at Fitch Ratings (India Ratings and Research) where I was responsible for analysing and rating different debt instruments of large corporates in the Metals, Mining and Textiles segments. In March 2022, I was given the task of assigning ratings to a Resolution Plan of one of the largest technical textile companies in India. The said company had already defaulted on its debt borrowings and I as a Lead Analyst had to study the restructuring plan and then assign appropriate ratings considering future expected performance.During these cases, the rating agency directly deals with the Bank that is heading the consortium and not necessarily the company. The Analyst works to make the banker understand the risks involved in the plan with the companys major objective to get a certain required rating. During the analysis part, I was given certain information on call and also emailed other relevant information directly from the company without the Bank keeping in the loop. Secondly, I was consistently pursued by the company and its officials about getting a certain rating so that they could go ahead with the restructuring process.These actions on behalf of the company, knowingly and unknowingly, were against the regulations of SEBI and I had to present an unbiased opinion in front of the rating committee. I could have chosen to ignore the regressions on behalf of the company, but then doing so would have put my companys name at risk. Afterwards, I decided to educate the company officials about the rules and managed to communicate such incidents to all relevant stakeholders so that all due processes are followed. Lastly, I took extreme care in analysing my viewpoints and then suggesting a possible rating with an unbiased viewpoint.
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?
A CEO is someone who is the face of the company and takes higher strategic level decisions that directly impact the direction of the firm. Given my interest in strategy consulting, I hope that I would be able to grasp various techniques and tools to help with the strategy-related decisions of a client. Afterwards, I would like to become the CEO of Paper Boat which is an Indian beverage company that markets and sell various traditional flavours such as Aam Panna and Kala Khatta. There are two main reasons for such a choice.Firstly, I would want to expand the brand outside of India and build on the rich history of Indian beverages. I feel that my knowledge of peoples tastes and preferences outside of India would greatly help the company to chart new territories. Paper Boat, under the leadership of the senior management, can easily differentiate itself on the product packaging, and product offering and can compete and hopefully challenge the duopoly of Coca-Cola and Pepsi in the billion-dollar beverages markets. Through this step, the world can take notice of the inherent talent and strength of Indian history (wrt the beverages in this context).Secondly, Paper Boat has its roots as a startup and I would love to become a CEO of a company where I can provide tremendous growth opportunities and freedom to all the employees. I would like to set a precedent of decentralization of power where every employee takes ownership of his/her work and continues to innovate in whichever way is possible.
Any Other Comments Or Factors You Would Like To Highlight About Yourself?
Living in Hong Kong, London, and Dublin, I have first-hand experience of observing how deeply integrated are the economies of different countries. I also have had the great opportunity to integrate within the community through the medium of the multitude of clubs and societies and form a strong peer group to become competent. Through the interactions and shared experiences, I have become open-minded and absorbed different points of view on certain topics. I believe that this is important as everyone has a different outlook and by combining peoples minds, we can have a greater understanding of the issue and thus achieve lasting success.I would also like to point to the fact that I have become very adaptable to my surroundings and able to grasp the details. In the summer of 2018, I did two internships one at a startup in London and another at an MNC in India. These contrasting experiences have moulded me to perform at a better level. On one hand, I was given a free hand in my approach to the project at the startup and I could be creative to produce the required project, whereas in the next month, I was subjected to a hierarchical structure of an MNC and there I had to follow the rules to have an appreciable impact on the assigned duties. I successfully adapted to both these scenarios and the journey was very enriching as it gave me confidence that I can not only be creative, and an independent learner at the startup but also be a team player and deliver results in a structured setting. This also has had a positive impact on my personality as I can readily assimilate into the environment and adapt myself to different kinds of intense, demanding situations.