Aditya Birla Group (ABG) is a conglomerate that has a vast variety of brands in various industries under its umbrella. I remember walking into the stores of Van Heusen in Connaught Place hundreds of times as a child as it was my father's favourite brand for shirts. I also remember my mother wrapping my school lunch in Freshwrapp foil or standing in front of the first house my parents built with huge bags of Ultratech cement lying around. At that time, little did I know that I was witnessing the brands of one of the biggest companies in the world. From capturing clothing market in India with brands like Louis Philippe, Allen Solly, Van Heusen, Peter England, Forever 21, etc. to venturing into ecommerce with ABOF (of which I was among the first few buyers), from building materials to metals and, not to forget, finance, ABG has done it all and been successful at it. It wasn't very long back when I was thinking about investing in Aditya Birla mutual funds (high returns, of course!), which I eventually couldn't do as I left my job soon after.
Upon deeper research, I found out that ABG has been actively contributing to the society as well. An investment of over Rs.500 crore globally, working in 5000 villages and a reach of 7.5 million people - these huge numbers, in my view, don't do justice to the magnitude of life-changing work that ABG is doing in the fields of environment, health, education, infrastructure, etc. It is one of the top companies to visit any campus for recruitments, not only beacause of the exciting offers and roles it provides to the students, but also because of the goodwill that it has managed to earn in the past 160+ years of its existence through such noble work.
The biggest challenge that I faced in life and the way I overcame it made me whatever I am today. Ever since I was a child until about 5 years back, my core personality was that of an introvert. In other words, I was passive to almost everything happening around me. My basic reaction to an event, a problem, a challenge was to avoid it or stay as far away as possible instead of taking it head-on. This started off involuntarily but became quite serious and bothersome as I grew up and reached the penultimate class in school. Although I had an inkling about my personality, I did not pay much attention to it as I was good at studies and teachers liked me. But a sudden realization dawned on me during a class exercise when the personality development coach asked us to name 10 friends who I could call in the middle of the night, favorite holiday trip with friends, sports I played, etc. I had absolutely nothing to share as I had little social life. The end of this session put me in a head-space where I was self-reflecting, and I knew I had to do something about it. Successful professionals communicate well, they work in teams, they set goals and achieve them. And I wanted to be successful in life.
The way I reacted to this situation and the steps I took to transform myself was exciting. I put myself in the most unfamiliar of situations I could find to open up my personality. To meet new people, I joined the British Council course on language skills and met people who are still my friends till date. I participated in organising events for my college where I learnt a lot and managed responsibilities successfully. I started doing solo travel to different parts of India and even abroad, something that was nerve-wracking for someone like me at the beginning but taught me a lot. I even took a leap of faith and travelled abroad for my master degree. The one year while I was there served as the perfect opportunity to meet people from diverse backgrounds, lead group projects and deliver presentations in front of hundreds of people. I slowly grew in confidence, starting my own NGO in Delhi and currently doing PGDM from one of the top B-schools in the country.
