Inspirational Alumni

Associate Director | Global Banking CCO, India

Company – The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited, India

Our inspirational alumnus, Mr. Sushil J Shah serves as the Associate Director, CCO, Global Banking India at HSBC. In his career spanning 17 years, Mr. Shah has worked for industry giants and financial conglomerates like Citigroup, Barclays and HSBC, handling diverse businesses like Consumer and Corporate Banking and diverse functions like Operations, Service, Underwriting, Product, Business / Operational Risk, Solution Design and Transition. Hailing from the PGDM Batch of 2001-2003, he attributes TAPMI as the single biggest positive differentiator in his life, acting as a catalyst and making his journey filled with immense learning and true sense of achievement. He also thinks that the opportunities received after TAPMI helped him make positive difference in people’s lives and enabled him hitting milestones, which otherwise looked distant dreams at the beginning of his career.

“TAPMI shattered my pre-set notion of how one goes about learning and up-skilling oneself. All through the PGP program on campus, we were subconsciously getting prepared for the real corporate world. In less than a month of joining, we realized that we were operating in a large university and were learning not only from the school but also from almost every other fellow batchmate. It is here I realized that managers are not entirely sculpted in the classroom, but a significant portion of it happens outside of it.”

Vice President – National Product and Programme Head Privy League

Company – Kotak Mahindra Bank

After my post-graduation wherein I inculcated ethics, focus, not fearing failure and strategic thinking along with community service I was placed with e-serve intl (erstwhile citigroup) in Mumbai wherein I worked in documentary collections for North and South America for 1 yr. I then moved on to work with Wealthfirst Advisors a startup by ex DSP Merrill Lynch team. For the last 14 yrs I have been with Kotak in varied roles starting as a Relationship Manager for Priority Channel, then Investment counsellor for Mumbai Central and Suburb region, followed by Branch Manager – Chembur, Investment Product Manager – National level, Digital Banking (6yrs) and now heading the privy programme (mass affluent and priority customers).

I was part of the team to be awarded for digital based biometric savings account opening by Finnoviti awards and various others. My career in Kotak has taken me places and given me and evolved knowledge of Banking and process and I could now call myself a true banker with sales, digital, process, business and product exposure.

Ex Vice President- Human Resource and Administration, BlueStone.

Atul has worked with a diverse range of companies in the last 12 years ranging from IT majors to Indian retail start-ups, which has equipped him to handle diverse work environment and structures.  

He is a seasoned start-up professional with a unique knack to build things from scratch. One of the early members of HR team at Flipkart in 2011, he was instrumental during the rapid growth of the company while managing HR for their Supply Chain. In 2014, he joined BlueStone and set it‘s entire HR processes- establishing the organization as an employer of choice and also supporting the organization during it’s exponential growth.

He has been recognized by Jombay and World HRD Congress for his contribution and work in HR space.

Atul has been active in the field of academics too. Sharing his experiences in form of case studies, he extensively writes and talks about them.  He has been guest speaker at many B-schools including TAPMI. He counsels young students to evaluate and arrive at informed career choices.

Kajal has nearly 15 years of experience in brand marketing, leveraging technology to devise marketing solutions for businesses, internet strategy and sales, online user experience and online PR. She has handled marketing responsibilities in various capacities across sectors like financial services, consumer durable, retail and eCommerce. She brings in a business oriented approach to leveraging digital marketing as an alternate channel for customer acquisition and engagement. She holds a B.E degree in Computer Science and finished her PGDBM in Systems & Finance from this prestigious institute in the year 2003. Kajal is one of the rare marketing professionals who cleared all three levels of the CFA in 2015. She brings great understanding of marketing, finance and business solutions using technology to the table. She has worked with organizations both established brands like Bajaj Allianz, DSP BlackRock, Times Of India Group, RITU KUMAR, Usha International and eCommerce startups like Luxehues.com in roles that have been at the confluence of marketing and technology.

Kajal now works as a senior marketing consultant with both startups and established players, helping them embrace new digital technologies along with content marketing ideas to set up a new benchmark in user experience and engagement. She is currently working as a consultant with Franklin Templeton Investments India, Mirum Agency, the digital arm of JWT & a WPP group company and an AI startup, Jubi.AI.

Mr. Sundar Ramani is Managing Director and Head of International Markets at HSBC Private Bank, based in Singapore.He rejoined HSBC to oversees business development in Australia, Europe, international Japan, the Middle East and offshore India. Previously, Sundar served as HSBC’s Market Head for Malaysia and before that as regional head for the South Asia team.

Before returning to HSBC, Sundar was Global Head of JPMorgan’s Offshore India business, overseeing teams in London, Dubai and Singapore.

Sundar began his banking career with Citibank in India and Hong Kong.

India’s #1 Authority on Network Marketing, Author, Entrepreneurship Consultant, Life Coach, Transformational Trainer and an inspirational speaker.

Deepak started his corporate journey with TVS Motor Company in 2003. Setting new records and growing at an unprecedented pace, he became Regional Manager for 4 states at the age of 25 (One of the youngest person to hold this position).

Record breaking success in his corporate career inspired him to be an entrepreneur in 2007. He achieved unprecedented success in his business also and is now regarded as a living legend of the industry. He founded a school of entrepreneurship – Multipliers and has built a huge business empire that is growing every minute even without his presence.

Deepak is the author of one of the most popular books in direct selling industry – Be a Network Marketing Millionaire, which is already sold in two languages. He is a certified international NLP master practitioner and have got training from the very best in the world like Tony Robbins, Antano Solar John, Shiv Khera, Robert T Kiyosaki, Brian Tracy and Jack Canfield. He strongly believes everyone can be successful with right coaching and training. He has trained and empowered over 2 lac people so far.

Deepak is an entrepreneurship consultant and coaches businesses and organizations to go to next levels of profitability and growth. He is a life coach who helps people to be happier, healthier, wealthier and excel in their careers. His transformational training programs bring results for the participants at jet speed. His training programs cover a wide range of subjects: Leadership at all levels, high performance teams, super productivity, holistic living, Sales, Network Marketing, Goal Setting, Work–life balance and many other areas. He is a keynote speaker at various events at corporates, government bodies, colleges, universities and various entrepreneurship promotion forums.

Deepak’s passion and life mission is to inspire and empower people to fulfill their dreams. He is always developing new tools and techniques to make success and happiness easier and faster for people. His mission is to impact 1 million lives globally by 2020 through his books, speeches, coaching and training events.

Deepak is an avid reader, runs marathons and is an adventure sports freak. He loves travelling and has already been to 25 countries with his family. He lives in Gurgaon (Delhi NCR), India with his wife Dr. Tanima and 3 kids.

Our alumnus Mr. Sharad Agarwal (Class of 2001) has been appointed as Head of Lamborghini India. He has always strived for excellence and held senior positions in reputed organizations in the Automobile Industry. Prior to this, he was the National Head of Retail Sales for Audi India. He has also been at the helm of reputed companies like TVS motors and Mahindra.

Arjun Viswanathan is currently responsible for the 360 degree Go To Market with one of Dell’s largest GSI partners. The role involves growing the strategic partnership with the trusted partner as well as being responsible for all elements of Sell With, Sell Through and Sell To on a global level. Before that stint, as Account Services Executive at Telecom & Technology, Dell Services, he was managing the Dell Services portfolio for focused accounts in the Telecom and Technology vertical; and was responsible for account mining, growth, profitability and NPS for focused accounts in the US geography.

D N Prasad (DNP, as he is referred to) is “Executive Coach & Talent/Culture Strategist”. DNP brings with him experience in Staffing, Staffing Process re-engineering, Campus relations, hiring and Programs, Planning & Research, HR Operations, Employee Engagement, Global Immigrations and Employer Branding.

His previous roles at Google include managing a Program Management office for People Operations in the APAC region, focusing on People Ops Strategy and Operations and managing People Programs in India, a function focused on Employment Branding and Talent Outreach. His responsibilities included People Central Staffing, Employment and Internal Branding and People Ops Communications, HR Analytics and Diversity.

Before joining Google in August 2006, he was working as the Head, Global Entry Level Hiring and Campus Relations for Infosys Technologies Ltd. His experience includes Employee Relations, Immigrations and HR Operations, all of which he handled at various points in time of his career with Infosys; across India and United States.

Prasad has a bachelor’s degree in engineering from Bangalore University and a Post Graduate Diploma in Management (HR) from TA Pai Management Institute (TAPMI), Manipal. His interests include sports (formerly, national level Basketball player, coach and sports administrator), movies, fitness and books (sports biographies is a pet read).He is also an active Mentor and a Career Coach.

DNP was chosen as and awarded the Best HR Leader in the Tenth Annual Singapore HRM Awards, 2013 – a pre-eminent HR Awards in Singapore. He serves on the HR Core Advisory Committee for NASSCOM, India and is a distinguished speaker in several HR and Leadership conferences and has also been featured in prominent HR publications in India and Singapore.

Prasad credits his two year stint at TAPMI, and, his experiences both within and outside the classroom, to have honed the fundamentals of management and leadership. He believes these are life skills that stay with you.

As the Chief Executive Officer of Bajaj Finance Limited, Rajeev has charted an ambitious growth path for the company. The company is now at an inflexion point and owes its exponential growth from a captive finance company to the most diversified non-bank in India today due to which the current market capitalization of Bajaj Finance is at 11,000 crores. He has transformed the company from 2,500 crores AUM (Assets under management) to a 26,943 crores AUM in a span of 8 years. Under Rajeev’s leadership Bajaj Finance has delivered a Profit before tax of 1,091 crores in FY14 and was also awarded the 3rd Best Financial Services company to work in India for a second year in a row by ‘Great Places to Work’.

The cumulative experience at GE, American Express and AIG has helped him change the course of the company and put it on a high growth path.

At American International Group, Rajeev was a Deputy CEO of its Consumer Finance business. At AIG, he was responsible for building the strategic framework for AIG to enter into the Consumer business, created a holding company and acquired two non-banking finance companies to establish a base for AIG in the Indian market.

Before that, Rajeev was with American Express where he spent more than eight years. During this period he did various roles across various products like credit cards, personal and business loans etc. At the time of leaving American Express, he was the Head of Personal and Small Business Lending in India.

Rajeev is a Management graduate from T A Pai Management Institute, Manipal with a Bachelor’s Degree in Commerce.

Gurudas Pai Currently working as “Director, Head of Credit Execution at “The Bank of Nova Scotia”, Gurudas has Well rounded experience as a Banker, Advisor and Corporate Treasury Professional. Specialties: Client Relationship Management, Credit and Debt Capital Markets, Structured/Project Finance, Organisation Planning & Strategy In his earlier role he was responsible for the origination and execution of debt arranging assignments across acquisition finance, international bond and loan markets at The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS).

Gurudas has had the privilege of being involved in many of the largest outbound and inbound acquisition transactions such as Tata Steel-Corus, Hindalco-Novelis, Vedanta-Sesa Goa, Tata Chem-General Chemicals, Vedanta-Cairn Energy etc.. Apart from acquisition finance, Gurudas has led many loan market transactions for Indian issuers in both the international and domestic markets. Gurudas has also been associated with multiple bond transactions across investment grade and high-yield issuers in currencies such as USD, Singapore Dollar, Swiss Franc, Off-shore Renminbi, Hong Kong Dollar and Indian Rupees.

He has also been a part of Equity, M&A and Project Finance deals at RBS and in his previous assignments with SBICAP and Larsen & Toubro. Gurudas has actively been taking part in panel discussions organised by the Asia Pacific Loan Markets Association, International Financial and Legal Review, IFR Reuters both as a panelist as well as a moderator.

To quote Gurudas’ words with reference to the difference that TAPMI made to his life and career, he says, “Apart from the very strong academic rigour, TAPMI, focussed greatly on the importance of business ethics and personal health in the success of business leaders.”

Amit Chugh is currently the co-founder and CEO of Cosmos Ignite Innovations. He, along with his team, seek to change the world through a chosen path of Renewable Energy

• To bring energy to those who don’t have it at the bottom of the pyramid
  
• To strengthen the nation’s energy security
• To help the planet move faster towards cleaner, sustainable development

And, they do this through the economic model of capitalism instead of charity; because sustainability in everything that one does, as students, citizens and leaders, is what makes the world a better place.

It is this demonstration and scaling of a business model for growth, that TAPMI and other educational institutions that he had the privilege of attending have helped him learn.

To quote Amit Chugh’s words: “To turn dreams into reality, is the true test.To learn, plan, and act is what leaders do.To dream and to persevere with humility and self-confidence, is what Entrepreneurs know. Success is a by-product, and always comes.

And last but not least, are the friendships we all found through shared learning and ventures at TAPMI, that is a bedrock to last a lifetime. I hope this inspires many others to dream and boldly venture from TAMPI into the wide world, in their own calling, whatever they might so choose.

Remembering always, to stand and be counted as someone who made a difference”.

Simeran started off her career as Sales Executive with Manipal Group of Hotels in Bangalore, at Central Park Hotel. Within 4 months of her joining, she got an unexpected interview call from TAPMI and so she resigned. An intervention by the Director of Manipal Hotels and the Manipal group resulted in an opportunity to defer her admission by a year in exchange for continuing to work with the Central Park! Of course she jumped at it – it was one of the best gifts to her from TAPMI and it made a huge impact on what she took away from the 2 year course that followed.

In 2014, after 10 years of building Fastrack, she moved to Bangalore’s very own garage brand – Wildcraft, to develop and lead the brand strategy.

The next 2 years were spent focusing primarily on reposition and re-launching Fastrack as an independent youth brand. After the launch in 2005, she got an opportunity to try her hand in the FMCG sector with the biscuit and dairy major Britannia, where she had a brief stint as Brand Manager for the Cheese and Butter lines. But life had other plans for her and post restructuring within Titan, Fastrack was spun off into a separate SBU within the watch division and she was called back to lead the marketing of the brand…perhaps one of the best decisions in her then short career. A year after she returned, she was given charge of the entire brand and the sunglasses category was added to her portfolio. She went on to take over the marketing of the Licensed Brand portfolio of watches – Tommy Hilfiger and Hugo Boss and launched FCUK/French Connection Watches. In 2009, Fastrack was extended to other fashion accessories like Bags, Belts, Wallets & Wristbands and she conceptualized and led the launch of the Fastrack’s Exclusive Brand Outlets. Over the next few years, she developed a team below her that grew the retail chain of Fastrack Stores to 140 pan India. 2013 saw the launch of the next category for Fastrack – Helmets.

Simeran was recruited by Titan for the Management Trainee program in 2001. The first year was a field sales stint based out of Nagpur followed by a 1 year sales operation stint, as Assistant Manager Sales Operations, at the corporate office. Having evinced a desire to move into marketing, an opportunity came up in 2003 and she moved as Assistant Brand Manager on sub-brands of Titan, Fastrack, Dash and soon after the Luxury range of Nebula was added to her portfolio.

Simeran Bhasin currently is the Co-founder of Ragtagger Lifestyle Pvt Ltd.

Simeran Bhasin quotes, “TAPMI has played a huge role shaping me as a professional today. From the team-work format of working in groups bringing in practitioners from the industry to teach, TAPMI has been the perfect launch pad for me.”