“As an individual, I am strong, determined and result oriented. I am a perfectionist which has helped me be an asset to organizations and earn some revered employee awards such as the Best Intern Award (JSW), Top Gun and Rock Star Award (Info Edge). I have always maintained a balance between academics and extracurricular by being a part of various events, clubs and committees throughout. I believe my strengths are perseverance, decisiveness and determination. I am an animal lover and want to do something for their welfare. Whenever life gets me some free time, I indulge in crafts, pet keeping and social interactions. My aim is to be a well versed professional who has created an impact while being a socially responsible human being and has managed to make a name for herself.”
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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.
“I decided that I wanted to do an MBA during my second year of engineering because I realized given the set of skills I possess, marketing is where I should be. I was good with coding and computers, but marketing was something I resonated with. Doing an MBA from a top tier college was a dream. Along with this, I was also clear that I wanted an industry experience before I ventured into this. For the same reason, I did not even appear for CAT until 2017.
Two years into the industry after my engineering, I was doing really good at my company. I had been chosen as the youngest Top Gun Awardee, apart from various other accolades that were bestowed upon me. On top of this, I was a top rated employee for FY 2016-17 (only 1% employees received this feat, out of roughly 1500 employees). Ground reality of the b-school world is that many go there for lucrative packages and brand value. I had all of this while I was working; I had a good pay package and a good professional reputation. Adding to this was the fact that my parents were satisfied with my current state and didn't really think MBA was necessary.
I couldn't have prepared for CAT and maintained my top rating, simultaneously. It was a tough call; but the clarity in my head helped. I knew where my strengths lay and what my dream was. With only these two contributing factors, I informed my manager about my goal and how I will not be contesting for the top rating the coming year. I knew I had to prepare for the exam after 9-12 work hours, and one unlucky day could still turn all these efforts into vain. Nevertheless, I gave up lucrative job prospects for my dream; and luckily luck favoured me.”
When was the last time someone relied on you? OR What did you do which was purely for someone else - a truly selfless act.
“During my last employment at Info Edge, my team was engaged in a monotonous task of manually verifying the data that was fed daily to the system. This was a daily process which was done to make sure that the site is up and running and did not produce glitches for our customers. This took substantial time of all members.
I took an initiative to remove this by writing a self running code module for the same. After working for almost a month on this stealth project, out of my daily assignments, I was independently able to take it to completion. The project reduced time required for the initial jobs by 100%. This was done when I had been 16 months into the company. I stayed in the company for 35 months, and made sure that this project was up to date with current technologies, and was easy to use for the team.
The day I informed everyone about my resignation in pursuit of higher studies, the first mail my manager got from the Vice President read, "Who is going to handle the project now so seamlessly?" It was that day I realized how important this project had become for the team. Even after almost 28 months after I have left the company, the mail that is sent to the team on behalf of the project reads my name as a signatory: "Regards, Kshipra Dwivedi".”
Tell us about a time when you disagreed with an opinion/idea/decision. What did you do about it?
“A very twisted situation happened during the IIM Shillong interview. We were sitting for the GD in a group of 10. I suddenly hear a song playing in the background. I ignored it for the first thirty seconds and eventually realized that it is my routine 9 am alarm that is ringing, even when I had turned off the mobile. Now, we were already warned that even a beep from our phones meant straight disqualification without even informing us.
I tried to subdue the voice by throwing my bag under the table but it didn't help. Rather it made it look like the voice is coming from near some other participant. This went for the entire 3 minutes. The interviewers looked frantically at the participant near whom the phone now lay. They just didn’t say or ask anything.
The GD went over and we were asked to leave. After the GD, I confided this with a friend who happened to be in the same center. She advised me to let the incident go, and it should not hamper anyone's chances of a convert. I knew I was not even close to being a suspect, but I was surrounded by a lot of 'what if's'. "What if the interviewers did penalize the guy they suspected?" "What if the entire panel suffers because of me?"
I finally decided to be truthful about it and told the interviewers about the entire situation at the start of the interview. They grilled me on the entire thing during my interview but because I knew I was honest and everything happened unintentionally, I handled everything without stress. I guess it was my honesty because of which I later converted the institute. Key takeaway from the incident - Clarity of thought is important before disagreeing in a situation. I was clear that the repercussions of not revealing might have greater stakes than my selection.”
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?
“I feel I have an edge in personal communication and understanding human emotions. This might be a result of my inclination to know and understand people more, and a big social group. Time and again this belief has been made stronger by various interactions and events that unfolded. It has always been easy for me to start conversations in which even a stranger would not hesitate to be a part of. The most recent positive feedback regarding this was from a co intern at JSW. This is something about me that I cherish, because it contributes to greater life goals for me. Some recent examples to support my belief can be my interactions during MBA, including the ones during the crucial end customer interactions for the internship project. This expertise did help me leverage these interactions to find hidden emotions and customer perceptions, which in turn bestowed me with the Best Intern Award at JSW MIP 2019.”
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?
“It is really overwhelming to think so, more because I know this will help me get rid of the education loan and let me complete a dual MBA, second one from a foreign top notch University. Now coming to broader arenas that seem fit for this amount. I guess the initial reaction to this amount will be investment straight away. I will not really want the feeling of being rich before I achieve a certain level of professional feat. Money does bring a lot of ease in life (these thoughts are very personal), and I would not want this to act as a hindrance to the formative years of my career after MBA and cherishing 'my hard earned money'. Few years from now, when I do expect some stability, I would want to use most of it to establish a really good animal shelter and rescue center, which is a life goal. I don't see any organisation working for animals as they should in India. While this amount will still not be enough for sustaining the shelter throughout, it is enough to give it momentum and attract necessary funding in the longer run.”
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