What do you do when you're really interested in a subject or truly passionate about it? Most people would endeavour to learn more about the subject and gain expertise. But Shubham, featured today as InsideIIM's Best 50, went one step further. After clearing CA IPC, he decided to share hos learning and passion in the form of a blog, videos, learning resources, etc with his fellow aspiring CAs and peers. This mindset also made him join
Voyage Capital – The Investment & Equity Research Club of IIM Indore. All this ends up making Shubham one of the Most Employable Graduates of the Class of 2018-20. Read to find out more!
The following is Shubham Baweja’s set of responses to a questionnaire floated amongst MBA graduates to determine the top-50 most employable MBA graduates of the Class of 2020. Amongst the massive number of entries and responses being evaluated by the Founder of InsideIIM-Kampus Konversations, Shubham’s story and profile stood out. Here's his own story in his own words.
“I see myself as a calm and composed personality. I have always had that thing in me to go for something extra, to go that extra mile, even if it means going unconventional. I have always pursued my interests, be it academics or investing or making a social impact. I am passionate about my dreams and I make plans to achieve them in time. Based out of Haryana, I did my graduation in commerce from SRCC and my MBA from IIM Indore. Next up I will be pursuing consulting in a MBB firm.”
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Name an instance where you wanted something and went out of your comfort zone to achieve it OR Tell us the biggest risk you have taken so far in your life.
“Here is an instance wherein I went out of my comfort zone and did something I feared the most.
I had a fear of water. All because of an incident in school. I drowned, fell unconscious and the next thing I remember is sitting by the pool some 10 minutes later. It was so ugly that I was upside down in water. After this I used to avoid the pool or any water sports. But this year, when I was going to Andaman I didn’t want to miss the Scuba dive. It was high time I got the better of my fears. So I decided to give a thought to what I had been avoiding since long. I took a step-by-step approach, focusing on just the next step for once. I made myself calm with simple boat rides first, followed by floating lessons. Then I went for my first water sport - snorkeling and at last I did it, I did Scuba and am not afraid of water any more. What worked for me was my strong will and a structured step-by-step approach. I realized I didn’t fear water, I feared the fear of water.”
When was the last time someone relied on you? OR What did you do which was purely for someone else - a truly selfless act.
“After I had finished my CA IPC, I could acknowledge that preparing for CA education is a costly affair. I led a student-to-student assistance initiative ‘SRCC – Wings of Fire’. It provides free academic assistance to students preparing for CA exams across India. I took up the following in my year long tenure –
- Curated content – 5 publications/notes, 2 video lectures and 4 open classes, reaching 8000+ students
- A whatsapp group for real time doubt clearing
- Mock exams in association with renowned CA faculties
- First ever student organized CA Confluence (2017)
- #HumansofCA, a series of motivational posts ft. renowned CAs
- Robust internal check mechanism for content review
All the activities Wings of Fire does are free of charge with the motto of #TogetherWeLearn. Today, it has 7.5k+ likes on facebook and a post gets a reach of 60k+ on average. All our work can be accessed at https://srccwingsoffire.wordpress.com/about/.”
Tell us about a time when you disagreed with an opinion/idea/decision. What did you do about it?
“I was a member of Voyage Capital – The Investment & Equity Research Club of IIM Indore. We run a closed-ended fund wherein we collect investments from students and invest in Indian equity markets. We invest the money as a team, but there were a lot of instances wherein a stock pick by someone wasn’t what I approved of. One cannot always have the same opinion about a stock as others. These conflicts could have led to poor fund performance. It made decision making tough as all of us were on the same footing and had got expertise in some sector or the other. And no one would always be right. So to resolve this, we set some limits, as in the amount any one of us can invest without anyone else’s consent. Anything above that needs to be approved of by X number of members. This way we ensured confidence in all our team members and it didn’t delay our decision making as well. All of us abiding by the same protocols made the resolution even better. And once the team shows confidence in members, the members also take full responsibility for their decisions.”
What is the one thing you can claim to have some level of expertise or depth of knowledge in - it could be anything - a subject, a sport, a hobby, a venture, an initiative which has led you to do deep work in that field?
“There are two things I would like to highlight here – finance and teaching. Taking finance first, I think I have got a good command over finance subjects. It all started with studying commerce in high school. Pursuing my interests, I did CA IPC along with my under graduation in commerce from SRCC. To learn more about investing, I cleared CFA L1 and will be writing CFA L2 in the next attempt. To get practical exposure, I applied for Voyage Capital – The Investment & Equity Research Club of IIM Indore. I got through and must say that I have learnt a lot by investing. Voyage Capital was the platform which allowed me to practice what I had been learning since school.
Second, I think I can teach well. I can make the other’s understand in a simple and structured manner, which helps them retain longer. During my school days, I volunteered at an orphanage to teach Mathematics and English over weekends. And in my graduation, I led SRCC – Wings of Fire, a student-to-student academic assistance initiative. I made notes, video lectures and took open classes for CA students reaching 8000+ students. I have always had initiatives which offered the space for me to share my knowledge to others.”
If 10 Million Dollars (approximately INR 75 Crores) is given to you to use it any way you deem fit what would you do with this corpus?
“I consider it as a one-off payment. There are two ways to use it – either to expense it or to invest it. Expensing it would mean buying stuff today worth INR 75 cr. But investing it can create more money for me in future and I can also ensure a stream of cash inflows.
I would choose to invest this amount to support social entrepreneurship. To support organizations working in the social sector. The idea is not to directly feed/educate underprivileged but to make them able to sustain a livelihood. In other words, the idea is to allow money to attract more money. Within social entrepreneurship, there are a lot of options like microfinance, educational programs, healthcare etc. Personally, I would choose to invest in educational programs. So this amount would be up for investment in organizations working in the educational domain. And only after analyzing them on the ESG front (Environmental, Social & Governance). Such an investment might be illiquid at once, but since the amount itself is a one-off payment, I can stay invested for long and en-cash superior returns later.”
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