0:06 [Music] [Applause]
0:13 thank
0:15 you good
0:18 evening uh chairman Mr Kumar mangalam
0:22 Bera the Board of Governors members of
0:23 the IMA
0:26 Society Professor asish Tanda and distinguished
0:28 distinguished
0:31 faculty thank you for inviting me here
0:34 today to the proud parents and family
0:38 members and the graduating class of
0:49 congratulations it's a real privilege
0:51 for me to return to campus stand at this
0:55 end of the podium and speak to you on a
0:58 day which is likely the most memorable
1:00 day in your life so far
1:03 it's hard for me to believe that it's 37
1:06 years that have passed since the day I
1:09 was sitting where you are today I
1:11 remember a myriad of emotions from that
1:16 day Pride at having got this far anxiety
1:18 about what the future might bring and
1:21 eagerness for the next phase of
1:24 life as I drove in today I noticed that
1:27 a lot has changed about the
1:31 campus but there's much that proven a
1:35 ageless this iconic Lua Plaza has
1:37 retained its elegance and charm Through
1:40 the Ages and as I sat there through uh
1:42 this presentation I could see the full
1:44 power of the
1:47 plaza the Howard steps in the main
1:50 entrance well I can almost taste all the
1:53 bun omelets I've had here all those
1:56 years ago these are the elements of the
1:58 I am Amad experience that have always
2:00 stayed with me and will stay with you
2:05 too cherish them while you still
2:08 can 2 years ago you chose to seek a
2:12 management education at I am on the B
2:14 that choice has given you many
2:16 privileges you've been exposed to the
2:19 most advanced toolkit for modern
2:22 business managers the case study method
2:24 has given you technical skills that the
2:26 best managements in the world are
2:29 looking to build you've been stepping to
2:31 the shoes of professional managers
2:33 horning your skills on real life
2:35 situations very similar to what you'll
2:38 be handling soon and you've enjoyed the
2:40 company and camaraderie of friends who
2:42 will be your peers throughout your professional
2:43 professional
2:48 life this is a formidable toolkit I can
2:51 vouch for it but remember that it's
2:53 merely that a
2:56 toolkit once you step out of the safe
2:59 Cocoon of campus and into the real world
3:01 the the outcomes you achieve as a
3:04 professional will depend only a small
3:07 part on how well you put this toolkit to
3:11 use in large measure your success as a
3:14 professional is likely to hinge on
3:16 choices you make in your
3:19 life you are poised to enter the real
3:22 world tomorrow the choices you make
3:25 there will Define who you
3:29 become as Dumbledore told Harry it's our
3:31 choices Harry that show what we truly
3:34 are far more than our abilities and so will
3:37 will [Applause]
3:40 [Applause]
3:43 yours as I reflect on my own life I
3:45 believe that are three choices that are
3:48 particularly shaped who I am today
3:50 choices that you might face yourself
3:52 soon today I want to talk to you about
3:56 those three choices the first in life
3:58 you will encounter folks in the road
4:00 ever so often
4:02 and when you do you will find yourself
4:06 answering an unasked question do you
4:08 want to stay with the path well known or
4:10 do you want to venture forth into
4:13 uncharted waters unmapped
4:16 territories the choice of which road you
4:19 take will shape who you become for me
4:22 more often than not I chose The Road
4:25 Less Traveled and it has indeed made all the
4:26 the
4:29 difference it started early in my career
4:30 with an opportunity to be part of the
4:33 startup team of icss Securities a joint
4:36 venture with JP Moran my career thus far
4:39 had been steady and successful to go off
4:41 that predictable and well-known
4:44 well-trodden path to set up a JV with a
4:46 global major was
4:49 nerve-wracking but eventually
4:52 rewarding similar folks in the road
4:54 presented themselves multiple times
4:56 thereafter after my first years as a
4:58 corporate banker and about five more as
5:00 an investment Bank Banker the
5:02 organization offered me a chance to
5:05 Pivot once again this time to set up the
5:08 personal financial services
5:10 business I must admit my
5:14 nervousness I was really scared Retail
5:15 Finance was a much debated
5:18 diversification for the group and I had
5:21 zero exposure to it the institution and
5:24 I were both taking a big bet but as it
5:28 turned out it worked just fine a few
5:31 years later y another pivot this time to
5:34 leave banking allog together and set out
5:37 to establish a life insurance company a
5:39 few exciting years later one more fork
5:41 in the road I decided to return to
5:44 banking to lead access bank the
5:46 organization that I've been proudly
5:49 associated with ever since so why all
5:51 these pivots these Journeys into roads
5:54 less traveled for me the key driver has
5:57 always been the same the learning
6:01 curve we live in extraordinary times in
6:03 the '90s the US Army College coined a
6:04 term to describe the world order that
6:07 emerged after the Cold War they called
6:11 it wuka volatile uncertain complex and
6:14 ambiguous I'm sure most of you are
6:15 familiar with the term which has
6:17 increasingly become a part of the modern
6:18 day business
6:21 vocabulary we live in a world where the
6:24 rate of change is constantly increasing
6:26 the effectiveness of our response
6:33 the number of variabl at play are ever
6:36 higher and there's vanishingly few
6:40 situations where there's a clear right
6:44 answer how do you thrive in such a hooka
6:47 world my answer has been with learning
6:50 agility so keep learning and keep
6:53 learning from whoever you can learn from
6:55 the more learning curves I climb the
6:58 more complex and novel situations I put
7:00 myself in the more likely that I will
7:02 continue to remain
7:04 relevant growth begins where your
7:06 comfort zone
7:09 ends every time I found myself at one of
7:12 Liv's Crossroads I tried to ask myself
7:14 which path offers me the steeper
7:17 learning curve and more often than not
7:20 I've tried to take that path I've tried
7:23 to learn new ways to learn and slowly
7:26 but surely learning itself has become a
7:29 habit so that is one important Cho
7:31 Choice you'll be making in your lives
7:35 starting tomorrow when two roads diverge
7:39 in the wood which one will you take and
7:42 why the second choice set that I want to
7:43 talk to you about is your choice of a life
7:44 life
7:47 partner yes it's a cliche to say that
7:48 the choice of a life partner is the
7:50 single most important choice you will
7:53 make in your life but of course it's a
7:56 cliche because it's true as Jackson
7:59 Brown wrote choose your lives made
8:03 carefully from this one decision will
8:06 come 90% of all your happiness and
8:10 misery I don't know about the 90% but I
8:12 do know that much of the joy you derive
8:16 on the Journey of life does har back to
8:17 who you choose to share this journey
8:21 with a lot of what I am today uh the
8:23 achievements that were so kindly
8:25 mentioned by uh the chairman during the
8:27 introduction are a function of the
8:31 partner I was lucky to have alongside my
8:37 journey Sanjay and I are both Alam na of
8:45 people he's widely read Divergent
8:47 thinking and
8:50 creative um during the discussions with
8:53 the faculty uh Mr Professor raguram
8:56 pointed out what I was like linear
8:59 thinking introverted timid so very
9:01 different personalities but on the most
9:03 important thing we're not different at
9:06 all we have very similar core values if
9:08 I were to point out the one thing that
9:10 has made our partnership successful it's
9:13 just that the alignment on core values
9:15 and indulge me for a minute if I sound
9:18 like a mom here but when you're out
9:20 there looking for a partner look beyond
9:25 their looks their success their style
9:28 the the durability and strength of your
9:30 relationship is is not going to come
9:32 from your partner's personality it is
9:35 going to come from their character so
9:38 remember to look well beneath the
9:41 surface my discussion of partner choice
9:43 so far seems to have been about life
9:46 Partners but as professionals you will
9:47 find that they're frequently faced with
9:50 very similar choices that of
9:52 organizations or teams and the
9:54 principles that make for lasting
9:57 relationships with your work team or
10:00 with your organization aren't terribly
10:02 different from those that make lasting personal
10:03 personal
10:06 relationships it's easy to get enam
10:08 enamored by the visible and superficial
10:10 details of a new job you're
10:12 considering uh my kids and I had this
10:15 conversation all the time right the
10:18 money the fancy title the fball table in
10:21 the break room they're all very exciting
10:23 but in most cases that's not what makes
10:26 for a fulfilling career you want to join
10:28 an organization that has values that
10:30 match yours that has people you can be
10:33 yourself with that gives you the space
10:36 to be who you have the potential to be
10:37 as a
10:39 professional these are not things that
10:41 any firm can tell you in their
10:43 pre-placement talk it's something that
10:45 you can only find out the hard way by
10:48 doing your own research by looking
10:49 beneath the
10:51 surface so that's the
10:54 major so that's the second major choice
11:01 before I talk to you about my third life
11:04 defining Choice let me tell you a
11:07 story I was an eager young girl in class
11:10 5 when the story took place imagine me
11:14 4T tall in school uniform and pigtails
11:16 yes I had pigtails those days I was a
11:19 competitive girl and had my heart set on
11:22 standing first in our class as the year
11:24 Drew to a close I knew I had done well
11:27 but the outcome was far from certain on
11:29 this particular day our class teacher
11:31 sat in front of the class and went
11:33 through all the report cards one by one
11:35 satisfied that everything was in order
11:37 she sorted the report cards by rank
11:40 stacked them up added a blank paper on
11:42 top and secured the stack with a rubber
11:44 band much of the class was uninterested
11:47 in the proceedings but for me that stack
11:49 was the center of my existence it was
11:52 all I had eyes for the teacher snapped
11:53 the rubber band to make sure all was
11:56 well looked up and called out for me can
11:58 you take these to the staff room please
12:02 and don't peep now imagine the scene
12:04 there right a Restless girl all of 10
12:07 years old walking with a stack of report
12:10 cards in her hand all I could think of
12:13 that entire work to the staff room was
12:16 which report card was on top and all it
12:19 would take to know the fate of my ear
12:20 was a quick
12:23 peek experiences build character and
12:27 that walk built mine do you think I
12:29 peeped no
12:33 right uh which gets me to the third and
12:34 final far-reaching
12:37 Choice when faced with a minor moral
12:40 dilemas of every day what do you choose
12:43 to do you can do the experient thing
12:45 make the Practical Choice take the
12:48 shortcut or you can be led by what you
12:51 believe to be the right thing to do
12:53 every time you decide to take the harder
12:55 but more principled path you add one
12:57 more brick to the foundation of your
12:59 character and every time you choose to
13:02 compromise with what you believe in you
13:05 give yourself the license to do it again
13:07 and you take one break away from the
13:09 building of your
13:11 character we live in a world today
13:14 that's infinitely connected and has unlimited
13:15 unlimited
13:18 memory for those of you who are on
13:20 social media all the time you know no
13:23 part of your history ever truly Fades
13:26 away this is particularly true if you
13:29 intend to be a successful professional
13:32 each and every one of you today with the
13:33 privilege of these robes that you're
13:36 wearing has the opportunity to be
13:38 amongst the most successful people of
13:41 your generation uh I was telling one of
13:42 the guys I'm waiting to see which one of
13:44 you is going to create the next Google
13:47 or the Facebook or make a difference to
13:51 um government policy or
13:53 companies so I know all of you going to
13:56 have great careers unless you wear away
13:59 from your moral compass
14:02 remember everything you do today is For
14:05 Better or For Worse in the public gaze
14:07 and the Public's interpretation of it
14:10 their retelling of it even their memory
14:13 of it it's very likely to be imperfect even
14:14 even
14:17 unfair uh I guess many of you have seen
14:19 the YouTube videos of Travis Ken's
14:22 argument with an Uber driver and his subsequent
14:23 subsequent
14:27 MIAA well access bank and I as the
14:29 leader we've had more than a fair share
14:32 of public Gaye recently in the last few
14:35 months you can keep railing against the
14:37 unfairness of the omnipresent media's
14:39 Judgment of your Every Act but that's
14:42 simply not productive just remember the
14:45 only real armor you have is to always do
14:47 what you believe to be the right thing
14:51 to do let your principles be your true
14:54 north not just because it's morally
14:57 correct but as one of my mentors once
15:00 told me shika you go a long way and
15:02 doing the right thing will help you stay
15:05 there so remember that every time you're
15:07 tempted just remember that you're going
15:09 to go a long way and doing the right
15:11 thing is what's going to help you stay
15:14 there so there you have it the three
15:18 major choices that have shaped my life
15:19 choosing The Road Less
15:22 Traveled choosing Partnerships based on
15:25 core values and common goals and
15:28 choosing to always do the right thing
15:29 remember it's the only thing that will
15:32 stand you in good stead when You Face
15:34 your share of the adverse public
15:37 GS class of
15:39 2017 I hope you realize how
15:41 extraordinarily privileged you are to be
15:44 sitting on these Lawns today to be
15:47 wearing those robes to be next to the
15:48 amazing people you have called friends
15:51 for 2 years the further you get in time
15:55 the more sural this day will seem to you
15:59 so do soak in The Wonder of it all
16:00 you know it's always hard to notice
16:03 history as it's being made no moment in
16:05 our lives comes with a flashing breaking
16:08 news Banner uh time and distance offer
16:10 us the perspective to realize that the
16:12 moment you experienced was indeed
16:15 history making in your personal lives
16:16 you're living through one of those
16:20 moments today and as a nation we are
16:23 living through just such a period right
16:26 now this is India's time in the sun uh
16:29 you heard Mr B say that as well it's our
16:32 time as a nation to regain our fair
16:34 share of global economic production of
16:38 trade of Arts culture
16:42 Innovation as graduates of wiimi the
16:43 well-known Institute of Management in
16:45 Western India I presume it's still
16:48 called that [Applause]
16:50 [Applause]
16:53 right it is in incumbent upon you to
16:55 lead from the front in the building of
16:57 our nation whether you plan to join a
17:01 multibillion dollar a firm or seed a
17:04 startup you form the talent engine that
17:08 the India story is depending on as you
17:09 make choices that maximize your
17:13 potential do remember you are also part
17:16 of something larger than yourselves you
17:18 have the potential to reshape our
17:21 country and the country eagerly awaits
17:25 that reshaping your choices will Define
17:30 you and your Society so choose Choose
17:32 Wisely I said earlier that you're poised
17:34 to enter the real world tomorrow that's
17:39 true but that's tomorrow today go party
17:43 and thank you so much for your patience [Applause]
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