PRIVITTI is a business finance conclave conducted by Xavier School of Commerce and InfinX, which intends to give the students of Masters of Business Finance (MBF) insights into the burning issues faced by the financial sector. The theme for Privitti 2018 was “Indian Banks: Past Reflections and Future Ambitions”. We have with us Rajan Mithra, Coordinator of InfinX, the functional committee of Master of Business Finance program to share his remarkable experience with us.
What did the theme of Privitti signify to you?
The significance of Privitti 2018’s theme – Indian Banks: Past Reflections and Future Ambitions lie in the fact that it provided an insider’s perspective on the Indian banking sector and effectively addressed the elephant in the room: NPAs and how to deal with them. The theme also dealt with what’s in store for the future of the Indian banking sector.
The relevance you found between the concepts you have read and the knowledge you gained from the talks in the conclave?
The Master of Business Finance program has a subject on Commercial Banking and has a specialization in Banking and Insurance in the final semester, so the theme of the conclave was very relevant and the ideas discussed by the industry stalwarts was thought provoking.
Key Ideas you would like to share with us regarding the theme.
Public Asset Management Companies along with stronger regulations and Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code could solve the Non-Performing Assets (NPA) crisis.
Future of Indian Banks will heavily be influenced by Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain, Robotic Process Automation and P2P Lending.
The preparations are also a tedious process and involve a lot of hard work. Kindly elaborate the grapple you went through while collocating such an important event.
Since this was the first Business Finance Conclave organized by Xavier School of Commerce and InfinX along with MBF’s Career Advisory Services team, we had to be diligent and ready to tackle any task that lay ahead of us. So we started the groundwork 2 months before the scheduled date of August 5
th, 2018. The topic was unanimously agreed upon and we immediately started contacting speakers, primarily through LinkedIn. The rate of acceptance of connection requests on LinkedIn is very low and it will be abysmally low if you don’t have an already established LinkedIn network in the relevant field. During the process of connecting with the potential speakers, we had to apprise them about our course, the school and the university. Even after the connection request has been accepted and the speaker has agreed to come, uncertainty looms large until they arrive on campus.
As the day of the conclave approaches, arrangements regarding speaker’s accommodation, pick up from the airport, media coverage, flex and posters, audience and emceeing to name a few, need to be made and there will be a lot of hurdles during the course but surpassing such hurdles is a must since
the show must go on.
Please share with us the vital learning’s and wariness of working in a team along with how to stratagem for such a paramount event.
The learning’s from above can largely be summarized by the below-mentioned points:
- Teamwork is the miracle maker without which conducting a conclave is impossible.
- Start the groundwork for the conclave as early as possible- preferably 2 months before!
- Always have backup speakers who can come to the campus at short notice. (Most important)
- Double check whether you will have the desired number of people in the audience.
- Have dedicated personnel within the logistics team who can move mountains if necessary.