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Priyam Sarpal, IIM Calcutta - India's Most Promising Incoming MBA Students 2021

Sep 8, 2021 | 8 minutes |

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Priyam Sarpal from IIM Calcutta is one of India's Most Promising Incoming MBA Students 2021! About Priyam Sarpal: "I have been born and brought up in Delhi. I completed my graduation from NSIT in Instrumentation and Control Engineering. During my college years, I participated in multiple extracurricular activities I was the Vice-president of the student council and Secretary-General for the annual debating festival. For the last 3 years, I worked with Bain & Company and learned about multiple industries and capabilities such as market sizing, supply chain, and strategy. I love dancing and graduated in Bharatanatyam in 2012. I performed my Arangetram at Triveni Kala Sangam and have featured in national newspapers like the Hindu. I picked up baking and cooking during the lockdown. I love to bake cakes, I am also exploring how to make things from scratch. Recently I made ricotta ravioli from scratch."
The following is Priyam Sarpal's set of responses to a questionnaire floated amongst incoming MBA graduates to determine the top-50 Most Promising Incoming MBA students of 2021. Amongst the massive number of entries and responses being evaluated, Priyam's story and profile stood out. Here's her story in her words.

Tell us about a time when you messed up, and what you learnt from the experience?

During my stint as the Vice President - I thought the number of hours I put in would be proportional to the awards we win. However in the first half of the year after putting in a lot of effort, we ended up with zero awards - I realized this was because the team was overworked and people didn't feel motivated to improve the routine. In the second half, I started focusing on collaboration, making sure people had the space to do other things as well. Getting involved in the process made people connect with the society better and everyone started putting in a lot more effort on their own - as a result, we ended up winning 2 awards in some of the biggest competitions.


Tell us something about yourself that others may be surprised to know about you.

In college, I used to feel intimidated when I was surrounded by brilliant people. Debsoc had some of the most brilliant seniors and seeing where they were headed really inspired me, so to work on myself I joined the debating society even though I had no previous debating experience. I started attending Debsoc meets regularly and, my seniors there really helped me break through the walls Id built for myself. In an attempt to further challenge me, I applied to represent NSIT at Harvard National Model United Nations and after a rigorous process, I made the cut. At the conference, I met doctors, lawyers, International Relations experts from around the world, who surrounded me. To know about their lives and their culture, I had no option but to approach and talk to them. As I eased into those conversations I could feel all my previous inhibitions slip away. Even though I represented a very small country Seychelles, I led a block and released a position paper on behalf of our block. It is something I am continuously working on but I feel like I have come a long way.


What have been your two biggest successes in life? What did you learn from them?

My practice of Bharatanatyam - I have been learning dance since the age of 4 and there were moments when I was frustrated and didn't use to get things rights, but my long journey in the dance form taught me the art of patience and discipline. In 2013 I graduated from Prayag Sangit Samiti and performed my Arangetram that year as well. Apart from that, I have performed across 10+ shows in Delhi - some of which have featured in The Hindu and 3 other regional newspapers As a soft-spoken person, debating and being assertive didn't come naturally - but even then, I applied for Harvard National Model UN. I was one of the 12 candidates selected from a pool of 500+ candidates to represent NSIT at the prestigious conference. My journey to HNMUN was critical in teaching me the importance of critical thinking and standing my ground. The 4 days of the conference were a whirlwind experience for me, I debated with 3000+ delegates on critical international issues faced by our society. I learned a lot from my peers and on the last day, I was able to lead 120+ delegates (out of a committee of 360) to present my resolution. Our delegation was the only delegation from India in history to win 2 awards.


Professionally, what is your ideal image of yourself five years from now? Where do you see yourself?

Working at Bain & Company has given me clarity on where I want to head next in my career. After working at BCN for 3+ years, I am looking to now transition to a client-facing role and work alongside industry leaders. A career in consulting excites me as it gives me the opportunity to harness my analytical skills for problem-solving while exposing me to a myriad of industries and increasing my repertoire of knowledge. Moreover, one would be hard-pressed to find another profession where the learning curve is as steep or as dynamic. However, I am still exploring whether I want to go into management consulting, development consulting, or in a strategy role for a firm.


What is the one skill or characteristic you possess that you are most proud of, and why?

Hardworking and being a good multitasker I think one of my biggest strengths is the never say die attitude. During the 3rd year of my college, I was working on improving my percentage, alongside this I was also the Secretary-General for the Indian Parliamentary Colloquium and a part of the student council. Alongside this I also started participating in case study competitions, I was able to manage all of these activities by planning my time well and also working extremely hard.


In your opinion, what skills or qualities does a successful manager possess?

I think it's very important to have a good attitude when you are in a workplace - in high-pressure situations, it is very important to be calm and support your team members in whatever capacity that you can. It's important to realize that team's performance is more important than an individual's performance. I believe it is important to give feedback to both my juniors and seniors and receive feedback from both as well. As an analyst 2, I was managing a team independently one of the only few to do so from my batch, I was responsible for not just my work but driving my juniors to work as well and giving a holistic output as a team.


Tell us about an ethical dilemma that you may have faced, and how you resolved it.

During my tenure at Bain - I had an analyst assigned to me who wasn't performing well in her previous teams. Initially, I saw this as a liability as my team was already stretched and we had really strict deadlines, initially, I was thinking of going to my supervisors and asking them to get in a replacement for her. However I later realized that I had gotten to the place where I was because people had invested time in me, so I started coaching her more, breaking down the work for her and spending more time on parts of the work that she struggled within a matter of 3 months, she started mastering the skills and became a great resource for the team.


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 like to lead a company working in energy conservation - in my experience working with an energy conservation company, I realized the sort of potential tech, IoT, and AI are bringing to the industry. While there is a huge push in the innovation of products, they are currently missing a push in the marketing forefront. I worked with a Hong-Kong based firm, working to incentivize energy conservation using IoT sensors, and created the GTM strategy for them in the US, I performed due diligence for 13 markets to analyze the competition. This project helped them achieved 5x client growth in 6 months. Instead of targeting regular consumers like architectural firms in green space, corporates implementing CSR projects - I targeted schools & colleges - which opened a whole new demographic for them and a market with huge growth potential in other geographies as well.

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Check The List Of InsideIIM’s 50 Most Promising Incoming Students 2021 Here!


For the Class Of 2022, we are back with the 8th season of InsideIIM's Best 50 - India's Most Employable MBA Graduates - Class Of 2022! If you're graduating from a B-School in 2022, you're eligible to take part in this competition! Grab the chance to bring out your best side and impress your recruiters and peers. Take the opportunity to show the world why you are special, on your own terms. If you're using a web browser (Mozilla or Google Chrome), then you can take part through this link. Otherwise, please download the Kampus App (Android | iOS), and head over to Competitions.