The three years spent at EY were the toughest and the most path-defining for Ayushi. She got her hands over work ethic, stakeholder management and team management. But the travel, intense working hours, mental and physical exertion took a toll on her mental and physical health and was eventually diagnosed with clinical depression! This came as a shocker to her and made her realise that though she was good at consulting, it didn’t fulfil her soul. Her love for the English language in school, college internships and passion for ideating creatively led her to realise that Marketing was the way to go for her.
As the prospect of an MBA dawned over her, she did not want to prepare for CAT and figured out GMAT was also an acceptable exam that ISB, her #1 preference, accepted. The path was set - prepare for GMAT, score well, get into ISB. Two months before the ISB Application deadline, she started preparing for GMAT and took the exam with 45 days of prep. She scored 710, which was not a great score but still a good one to apply. She had 14 days to work on her application while managing a critical deadline for work. Her essays got finalised at 11:45 PM with the deadline at midnight!
The ISB shortlist gave her hope, and her interview re-affirmed her self-belief. ISB was everything that she had imagined and much more! It was the year of self-discovery for her that polished all her values and talents. Going forward she was finally sure of making marketing her pursuit.
The placement process is pivotal to the ISB experience. It teaches one the ability to deal with failure, humiliation, expectation, jealousy, sadness, happiness and empathy all at once. And after all the hardships she finally got placed at Freshworks as a Management Trainee in Product Marketing.
Now, she is working with an awesome team at Freshworks to market their world-class products. With the company’s recent IPO and growth, she truly feels that she has arrived!
Ayushi aims to achieve all her dreams of becoming a ‘master marketeer’. She says that if one wants to take one thing away from her story, it is this -
"As long as you believe in yourself and continue putting in the required efforts, there is nothing in life that you cannot achieve."
-Ayushi Grover
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