Sanya Monga from the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore is one of India's Most Promising Incoming MBA Students 2022!
The following is Sanya Mongal'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, Sanya's story and profile stood out. Here's her story in her words.
If I were to use a flower to describe myself, I would say I am a sunflower. I am a bright and optimistic person who works hard in life and believes in spreading positivity all around. During my schooling and colleagiate years, I have maintained a balance in academics and extra curriculars. I like reading so I read academic material or fiction books or mangas, whatever I can get my hand on. I got good exposure working with BCG in research. The next step in my life is an MBA to hone my skills and broaden my knowledge base.
Tell us more about your extracurricular achievements
National Competition: I participated in a lot of Olympiads and Quizzes back in school and undergrad. One of them is a national level test in Commerce subject. I participatd in the ICAI CommerceWizard quiz in 2019 and was ranked among the Top 500 students in the country with a cash prize of INR 500. In 2020, I was among the top 200 students in the country with a cash prize of INR 500.Position of Responsibility: I was a part of the placement cell of my college for three years. During my second year (2018-19), I got a chance to be the President and lead a team of 30+ members. We organized several recuitment drives for placements and internships for the students. We received 180 job offers for the third years (growth of 15% over previous year) at an average salary of INR 7 LPA.
Tell us about a time when you messed up, and what you learnt from the experience?
In my second year of college, I had teamed up with three classmates to write a research paper. We wanted to experience the process of writing one and getting it published. However, we were not able to complete the same and one of the reasons was that no one really took the initiative to take it forward. I had a couple of learnings from this experience. Firstly, it is imperative to evaluate each member's strengths and weaknesses and draw a concrete plan of responsibilities and workflow. Doing so at my job after college helped ensure everyone is on the same page. Secondly, I could have taken the initiative and led by example. We let the idea fizzle out but some progress would have been helpful. Now, I embrace this in everything I do. In job, I was enthusiastic about the opportunities that came my way and took the initiative to be one of the first to dive into it.
Tell us something about yourself that others may be surprised to know about you.
Throughout my life, I have been someone who has held various leadership roles and I have been able to help several people academically and otherwise. I come off as a person who is easy to approach and talk to. However, even with such an extroverted personality, I sometimes find it difficult to approach people myself or make friends. However, I realized this weakness during my undergrad college years. I talked to people about it and also read about it. Now I practice a few things when I reach out such as starting by asking questions about the person, listening intently and trying to find common grounds. I think this would be definitely surprising for the people who know me.
What have been your two biggest successes in life? What did you learn from them?
On my Class 12th farewell, I was awarded the All-Round Best Student Award by my Principal. I was extremely happy to receive this award as it was a testament to my grit and hard work. It also taught me that balance in life is important. If I wouldn't have maintained a balance in academics and extra curricular, I wouldn't have even been considered for this one. The other important success moment for me was when I was elected as the President
Professionally, what is your ideal image of yourself five years from now? Where do you see yourself?
I want to enter the social impact consulting space. Five years from now, I see myself as a consultant with one of the biggest consulting firms, helping corporate clients and other ecosystem members define their ESG strategy and implement impactful initiatives. There is a lot of potential in working with companies, big and small, and helping them transform their businesses into more sustainable and responsible enterprises. While I see myself doing such impactful work, I would also be doing well in my firm by grabbing all opportunities that come my way and focusing on making the most out of available learning sources.
What is the one skill or characteristic you possess that you are most proud of, and why?
I am very proud of my communication skills. I am a good public speaker. I have been able to win a lot of competitions and host large events because I am a confident orator. I have also written good articles and
In your opinion, what skills or qualities does a successful manager possess?
Firstly, a successful manager needs to be a people person. It is important to listen to everyone in the team and make them feel heard. Engaging and motivating everyone is also essential. Along with this, a manager should have sufficient domain and industry knowledge. Being a good leader and a good communicator helps to keep the team on the same page.
Tell us about an ethical dilemma that you may have faced, and how you resolved it.
While I cannot recall such a specific situation, there have been instances where my point of view has conflicted with others, and I could be both right or wrong about the situation. Conflicts would come up regularly when I was the President of the Placement Cell and situations of ethical dilemma could come up for me or my team. We followed a simple method to deal with this. I would ensure that all my team members sat down to discuss the issue and present their points of view. It would lead to a healthy debate moderated by one of the team members. If the discussion yielded limited results, we would reach out to our teachers to take their opinion and our alumni to understand how they dealt with the situation. As a team, we understood early on that placements are a big responsibility and we would have to maintain integrity at all times. This is why we established a system as a team and agreed to follow it.
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 be the CEO of Danone. Danone has been working towards becoming a responsible company. It has already got B-Corp certification for some of their brands. It is one of the leading companies on ESG issues. I would love to be a part of such a company that is creating such a positive impact. However, recently I heard that the financial performance of the company is not keeping up with their sustainability ambition. As a CEO, one of my first actions would be to review how to align financial and ESG success. It has been shown by several think tanks that delivering on ESG initiatives leads to financial growth as well. Hence, aligning these two aspects becomes important.