I Was Lead Analyst On A Project For 1 Of The Top 10 Museums | Simran Ahluwalia, InsideIIM's Best 50

"I am a young, self-aware and ambitious woman, constantly pushing her emotional and intellectual boundaries to make herself better than her previous version. I am trying to cultivate empathy to be able to operate not in conformity with any group identity but the identity inherent to each individual person. I am trying to educate myself in varied fields so that in my lifetime I can contribute to the improvement in the life of others and work on ideas that can bring about systemic, long-lasting changes to develop an ecosystem that enhances the dignity and quality of life of every individual. I cherish the people in my life and try to take care of them in whatever way possible."

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’ve always been very righteous – I’m unsure if that has anything to do with how my parents brought me up, that I was quite religious as a kid or that I have romanticized movies and novels; but I have had that firm belief of “doing the right thing”. Everyone has something that keeps them going in life and for me, having and abiding by a strong belief system has been my guiding path. The difficulty that lies here is that the limited environment that we are exposed to as kids makes us believe in an absolute right and wrong. But, as we begin to imbibe the complex intersections of life, we become exposed to the various versions of reality that exist in everyone’s head due to the history and circumstances that shape who the person has become. At whatever stage in life one confronts these complexities, he/she either runs to his/her parents, his/her religion or on the other end,becomes too reckless. If there is no absolute right or wrong then let’s look out for our own selves – similar to free-market ideology. That never satiated my soul.

So the most uncomfortable that I have made myself and continue to make myself every day, is in constantly updating my own belief system so that I have empathy for myself and for others around me. The keywords here being constant and empathy. Constant because any system that doesn’t nourish itself from feedback gathers rust and empathy because well, isn’t that the key to not only being a good person but to truly live life? Plus I keep questioning – not only others but always myself first. I engage in ethical dilemmas and the struggle of being a “good person” every day – this has its emotional costs but I have evaluated that these short term costs are nowhere close to the gains from a sturdier, self-nourishing belief system. I am trying to cultivate free-thinking – to shatter any dichotomy between my own inner and outer realities and to cultivate utmost empathy not only in thoughts but in actions for everyone. And this comes from a kid who had quite a strict set of parents during school time and been quite religious. I have shed my own whatever limited but few superstitions – I have my own idea of my spirituality, developed (and still developing) a balance of an equal and warm relationship with my parents, analysed cuss words to choose those that are offensive to no one but help in my own cathartic release, I’ve solo traveled – few days in Pondicherry and a day each in Rome and Paris, do not shy away from eating by myself in restaurants or going to movies alone and I question my own biases in every strong belief that I have had. On an emotional level, I have probably never been in my comfort zone over the past couple of years; but I strongly feel that it’s worth it."

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 time at BlackRock, a colleague of mine and I were staffed on an analytical and strategic piece with a senior US Analyst and two Director level US Strategists. The piece was aimed at advising one of the top ten museums in the world on asset management so that it could meet its construction expenditure for the next decade. Just a few months after our initiation on the project, the US analyst and one of the Strategists moved and fortunately, the US Analyst gave us good feedback and the remaining strategist decided to make us lead analysts and not get anybody else on the project.

We were handling fixed income analytics and statistics on excel and charting the strategic review for the client. The US Strategist chose to rely on us and we were able to deliver. If I have to talk about doing something truly selfless – if there is indeed something truly selfless because doing that might make us feel good, I have a couple of other instances. In class eleventh, an acquaintance and I began texting. He initiated and was very sweet. I’m not sure what drew him to me (because we had never talked before) but it seemed like he was carrying a burden and for some reason, he felt like talking about it to me. He was sexually assaulted as a kid by a distant relative and as far as I know, he hadn’t opened up to anyone about it. I’m not sure why he opened up to me, but he did and I listened and tried to help him through his feelings. I’m not sure how much I was able to help him, but after some time he did finally gather the courage to open up about it to his mom.

In another instance, a close school friend of mine was participating in an inter-school poetry debate competition on the topic of – O Woman! Why art thou so frail? – and he had to speak against the motion. He asked me to help him pen down the poem and I wrote the entire thing with help from our English teacher (probably the first full-fledged poem that I had written) and he won! Needless to say, I didn’t get any formal recognition but I was happy that I could write it.

One more instance I’d like to mention - my aunt was diagnosed with last stage stomach cancer and along with it, she began losing her memory and even developed some form of Parkinson’s disease. My grandmother had suffered a stroke and remained in a paralytic state for 7 years – so seeing my mom and masi take care of her had instilled in me this need/want to care for people. So, due to that and to maybe want to try to do something for my masi, I spent the winter term break of my first year at DU at her home and I used to feed her and help my sister take care of her during that time."

Tell us about a time when you disagreed with an opinion/idea/decision. What did you do about it?

"Because I have always had a strong sense of right and wrong, I have been highly opinionated since childhood. I do not have a very big instance where I changed something, but I have curated and evolved my beliefs over the years and I try to engage in conversations to get the message across.

In my junior school, I wasn’t happy that our art teacher didn’t teach us much and I told my parents about it. At the parent-teacher meeting, my parents went to talk to her and she asked me very warmly in Hindi – Kid, do I not teach you anything? I said – yes, you don’t. Since then my parents share this as a funny anecdote with everyone. I am very vocal about any difference in opinion with my parents and they have never tried to make me listen to them just because they are elder to me. We have had good discussions and they understand my free-thinking to a large extent now.

Once my mother and I were travelling back home on a DTC bus and a pregnant lady, very rudely, in a colourful language, asked a man to get up from the reserved seat, while his wife said that he needs to sit because he isn’t well. I went on to take the man’s side and told the lady that this isn’t okay. Even if she’s in need, adopting that sort of language isn’t the right way to go about it.

Once I had a very interesting discussion with an Uber driver. I took an Uber to Gurgaon and he began talking about how women get drunk these days and he chooses to not pick such rides because if anything happens he will be blamed. He went on to say that – how will these women manage after marriage? Did I ask, why? He said, what? They won’t continue drinking after marriage surely, right? And I replied – why? Do men leave drinking after marriage? And he was pleasantly surprised and went on to muse – that you are right. While this went quite well, in another instance we were travelling back to IIM and the Uber driver very blatantly remarked that if you girls end up earning so much, then who will marry you? And I began questioning him. He wasn’t as open to a pleasant conversation as the driver in the previous conversation and so my friends tried to stop me but I unapologetically maintained and still do that we need to speak out to ensure that this is not normalized.

Over the years, I have realized that bigger battles might be more efficient and the first step is always self-evolution. I always check myself for my own biases and evolve my mental models (example – my ideas of feminism, religion, spirituality, freedom of speech, democracy, etc). The next step that I’ll soon begin is writing more and actively join organisations or form them to take the battle forward."

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?

"An obvious answer to this question becomes finance. My final year specialization in undergrad was financed and then I went on to work for BlackRock. At BlackRock, I was earlier involved in cross-functional activities that involved some reporting, some strategy and analytical pieces. Along with a colleague of mine, I was the lead analyst on a project for one of the top ten museums in the world that wanted to manage its construction expenditure for a foreseeable future. We led strategy reviews for an approx. $250mn multi-asset portfolio. We worked with a senior researcher to come up with a research publication to track funding costs for UK Pension Funds and I later took this idea forward with a senior portfolio manager to develop a framework for dynamic financing. I was actually the only analyst with this knowledge and I was asked to present on the topic of financing strategies at our team’s Global Town Hall.

Later when we were to be given specialisations, I became an India portfolio manager for nine volatility funds of EMEA Insurance firms and also for financing portfolios of UK Pension Funds. I used to also present financial markets commentary in our daily global team meetings. In my MBA at IIM-I, I also took most electives from the domain of finance and economics. I also have a poetry blog, wherein I have penned down close to 50 odd poems over the years.

That said, I have realized that maybe synergies lie at the intersection of man-made knowledge silos and hence I am deliberately trying to broaden my horizon. For instance, over the course of this lockdown, I am close to completing 10 books – 4 are from English Literature, two from International Affairs, two from ideas of our freedom fighters and two on the history of mathematics. I also began a blog with this ideology about two years back and I try to write there from time to time."

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?

"In my last term on campus, I undertook a comprehensive study of social investing. I interviewed people from the industry – from the fields of CSR, incubator cells, impact investing and impact bonds and tried to understand the incentives involved and policy support required by these industries. On the basis of that study, I would like to conclude that out of the available alternatives for social investing, impact bonds probably have the incentives very closely lined up. The concept is that the return payment is made only if certain indicators are met – say the new enrollments in a school, passing rate, etc – putting pressure on the operating agency to carry out the work with full efficiency and effectiveness. According to a UN study, the estimated funding gap for India to meet its SDGs by 2030 is $565bn. The combined pool of estimated CSR funds & impact investing funds would be a maximum of $13-14bn in the next 10 years based on the current trend. Hence, I would like to set up an impact bond fund from the corpus, analyse areas with a maximum funding gap and minimum attention from other forms of social investing, partner with the respective state governments and diversify and invest."

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