Question 1: Kindly introduce yourself.
Answer: I'm Meghal Jain. I'm in my second year of bachelor of business administration from Shaheed Sukhdev College of Business Studies. Initially I took industrial design as a career path. However, later I realized that my mission extended beyond design and I envisioned making a broader impact by challenging the notion that business is solely a man's domain. This led me to switch to management. I started my business journey by helping my mom sell her organic chocolates. This made me realize that I do have a knack for business, marketing, and finance.I have a page called House of Marketing where I share videos on business and marketing case studies. In my college I've been part of the finance and consulting societies with startups and established companies like EY, Vodafone and Vedantu. I facilitated the establishment of My Moment of Makeover India Network, where we onboarded students from Harvard, Bits Pilani, SRCC, IIMs and many other colleges of University of Delhi.It's a pro bono consulting for women LGBTQI led businesses.It brings Together students from diverse walks and disciplines of life. Apart from that, I enjoy reading and dancing. I am right now working with a consulting company under which I'm also working with a huge Saudi food chain, which has kind of exposed my fascination with the food and beverages industry as well.
Question 2:That is very inspiring. So you started a blog called The Journey that Inspires.what inspired you to start this blog?Answer: I started this back when I was in 10th standard. I Always love talking to people from different backgrounds.I come from an airforce school and a business family, which are like two very different kinds of cultures.when I joined my school, I met a lot of people who had a very different upbringing and a very different story than I had. So I thought, why not start a blog that shares different perspectives of Different people or their stories from around the country? Because every story had a lesson.I spoke to many people including people who climbed mount everest, someone who had taken a part in olympics, and so on. This helped me to develop a very strong growth mindset. So the purpose behind that was to create impact through real-life stories.
Question 3: You have received the tag of honorable mention for the World Asian Case Competition. What inspired you to participate in this competition?
Answer: The World Asian Case Competition is very interesting .Usual case competitions ask us to analyze a fictional business problem but World Asian Case competition actually asks us to select one Asian brand that we really like and first understand its business model like what were the challenges that that business faced? What were their turnarounds? How did they become what they are today? It is a brand story, but at the same time, you also have to suggest something for the future. We chose Jio as our case study topic. Jio has a very diverse business portfolio. They have built that over the past few years. Like they have Jiomart. They are just not into telecom anymore. But even when they entered into telecom, it was a very strategic move.
Question 4: That is interesting. So what goes through your mind while preparing for a competition?
Answer: You always have your own fears, and it also depends on your investment in the competition. But I still feel that it's like whenever you have to go out in the crowd and out of your comfort zone, you're a little nervous, right? A little teary. That's something that happens with me as well. I actually intend to focus more on the process and then on the results. Have a winning mindset, but at the same time, focus more on the process of learning. A lot of times I've seen my peers or a lot of students focus so much on the results that they just forget what they're actually learning or gaining out of that competition.
Question 5:Can you tell us about your experiences and learning from EY, CAFTA case competition?
Answer: One thing I've learned a lot from these case conferences, we are as structured and comprehensive in the thought process as we can, and as well as creative. If you think very unidirectional, you limit yourself a lot. You have to think industry specific. Like for each industry, problems are different. That's something very important for any business student to realize is that whenever you're studying or in any case study that is based on a particular industry, try to understand that industry first and then find a solution based on that. Because a lot of times generalist solutions don't work. Be very specific and be very clear. And that is what really helped you have that edge.
Question 6: How do you see failures and setbacks in your journey? What are your opinions about that?
Answer: I think failures are a very important part. There are two responses you can have to a failure and one can just be demotivated and not moving on at all and being still stuck in that bubble. However, the other approach is that if you do feel sad, they're fine. Then you try to understand and try and contemplate the situation and see where and what went wrong and then learn from it. I would say if you have the second approach, then failures are a great experience.
Question 7: Who are the people that provide constant support for you and what are your future goals?
Answer: I think it's firstly obviously my parents,my mom,dad ,my sister and my best friend, she's in Bangalore right now, a person from medicine, Aranya. I have always had these four people in my life no matter what happens, and I still do. I lost a lot of friends, a lot of relationships, and during this part, because when you're trying to teach something, some people will understand you, some people won't, and a lot of people will just back out or try to realize it. After graduation, I will be taking up a role in probably consulting or venture capital. I do believe I might start something of my own. But yeah, there's a long way to go.
Question 8:Can you share a memorable educational experience or a project that you are particularly proud of?
Answer: I would actually like to take the example of the IIBC study I did part time at the end of the course, that is the Indonesian investment banking competition. This was a two-month-long competition and we had our exams. But the competition was about a half hour takeover. You have to suggest a company for Google to acquire in the AI space industry. And the problem is so interesting in itself because we have to look into generative AI and at the time, ChatGPT. We found really cool apps, really cool companies. But then we started with the financial analysis. That's the part that was very new to us. We were just learning how to make that model along the way while taking part in the competition.Within one night, we made the modern models, prepared a 150-page deck. It was a crazy experience. But at the same time, to talk about a lesson for life, which is to just hang around and have faith in your ability. We were able to pull through the entire competition and even get into the global top 20.
Question 9: what advice would you give to fellow students looking to Excel in the field of business strategy and finance?
Answer: I would give very direct advice that is to be very open and have your ambition set right. Don't do things just because everybody else is doing that.Try to explore things and find your calling for yourself. Find your own direction. You'll get to go into 10 different directions, and then you find your right colleagues. So do that struggle.
Question 10. How would you describe your experience as an executive director at myMoma?
Answer: It's been great learning . It's a very different experience because again, there are so many different students from different backgrounds. Some of them are also my age, some of them are younger than me. So obviously there are a lot of leadership challenges that this particular experience has caused. Because when you bring so many diverse people into one room, then there are a lot of opinions, a lot of directions, and how do you bring that sense of unity? In terms of my leadership experiences or leadership learning, I've learned a lot. I've become a good listener. I've become a better team player. I've been able to understand how team dynamics works and how you can efficiently work with a very diverse set of people and pose results. Because if you find a common link between all of them, then you are able to create impact by knowing what's the one thing that motivates everyone and then use that to bring everyone together. And the second thing I've learned a lot is that you cannot expect people to work for you until you're given something in return.
HIGHLIGHTS-
●Having her career path switched several times, she has only come closer to her dreams. Throughout her journey she never let anyones thoughts affect her prime goal.
●Executive Director and the co-founder of MyMoMa India network, a pro bono Consultancy.
●An enthusiast of business strategy and finance who owns the page @houseofmarketing where she shares videos on business and marketing case studies.-Received the tag of honorable mention for the World Asian Case Competition.
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