Palak Shah: Best 50 | India's Most Promising Incoming MBA Students 2025 | Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore
Palak Shah is a Chartered Accountant and risk consultant pursuing an MBA at IIM Bangalore. Growing up in her father's Xerox shop, she learned early to look for opportunity within constraints. During her CA articleship, she moved beyond audit and taxation to build financial models, raise CSR funds for social startups, and advise businesses on expansion. She has won national debate competitions and a Best Research Paper award at a national conference. Her creative work includes learning modules, Humans of M&R, and international learning programmes for more than 1,000 Asian industrialists.
Her most notable achievement came in December 2022 at the CA Students Mega Conference, where her research paper Making Billions by Selling Bhujia: A Case Study on Haldirams won the Overall Best Paper Presenter Award from over 200 submissions nationwide. Selected as one of 12 finalists, she had spent weeks researching Haldirams growth strategies, legal battles, and IPO plans. The night before, she scrapped her prepared speech and redesigned her presentation in a cooking show format, guiding 1,500+ attendees through a five-step recipe for bhujia. This creative risk won her three trophies and remains a defining milestone in her journey.
At PwC, Palak worked as an Associate in Risk Consulting, partnering with global clients to strengthen internal controls, improve compliance, and increase process efficiency. She developed Risk and Control Matrices for more than 650 processes, identified over 40 control gaps, optimised SAP access rights for more than 600 users, and diagnosed vendor-ERP data issues that shortened the P2P cycle by 30%. She also proposed a Voice of Customer framework and social-listening tools for customer-experience projects.
Palak's CA qualification is one part of a broader profile. Her curiosity has led her to raise funds for startups, design learning modules, launch storytelling initiatives, speak at national conferences, and experiment with animation. She is pursuing an MBA to bring her analytical background together with her interest in marketing, strategy, and storytelling.
Palak brings analytical rigour, adaptability, and creativity. Her CA background and PwC experience developed strong problem-solving skills, financial acumen, and attention to detail. She has also raised CSR funds for startups, created financial models, won a Best Paper Presenter award, and designed a storytelling initiative that became a firm-wide tradition. These experiences have taught her how to lead projects, engage stakeholders, and turn complex ideas into practical solutions.
Palak is developing strategic communication: the ability to simplify complex ideas and present them persuasively to different audiences. Presenting research nationally, teaching digital literacy, and delivering client recommendations have shown her that insights only matter when people can understand and use them. She is strengthening this skill through practice, feedback, and creative experimentation during her MBA.
During her CA articleship, an all-firm meeting inspired Palak to launch Humans of M&R, modelled on Humans of New York. She interviewed colleagues across levels about their stories, hobbies, and quirks, then shared them on the firm's LinkedIn page. What began as a small experiment became a weekly feature that strengthened internal connections and reflected the firm's culture. Before leaving, she created SOPs to support its continuity.
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