Don’t lose passion, PepsiCo Chairmantells graduating batch at IIM-Trichy

D Shivakumar, Chairman & CEO, PepsiCo India Ltd, addressing students at the Fifth Annual Convocation of the Indian Institute of Management, Trichy held last week, urged the students to remember five things as they embarked on their corporate journey: focus on learning, invest in the community, keep being curious, listen more than you speak, and not to lose passion in life.

“The world has become very fast today and one needs multiple capabilities to get through a career,” he said. He also told the students not to forget the contribution of three sets of people which made them what they are: teachers, classmates and parents, and urged the graduates to keep giving them reasons to brag about them during their career.

Along with Shivakumar, Shivendu Nadkarni, Vice-President, Asia/Africa Snacks, Kellogg’s was also a Guest of Honour for the convocation. R Karunamurthi, Chairman of the Convocation, and Member of the Board of Governors, IIM Trichy, awarded the diplomas to 108 graduates of Postgraduate Programme in Management (PGP) and 33 graduates of the PGP in Business Management. Prafulla Agnihotri, Director, IIM-T presented the Director’s report.

In his report, the Director highlighted the exceptional placement season of IIM Trichy, in which it witnessed a 56 per cent increase in the highest stipend offered for the summer placements and a 39 per cent increase in the highest CTC offered at the final placements.

He congratulated Upendran Vasu and Anirudh Jain for securing the second place in the GSCMI inter-college case study competition held by Purdue University.

At the end of the report, Prafulla Agnihotri invited the Guests of Honour and the Chairman to release the special edition of the Institute Newsletter commemorating five years of IIM Trichy.

The 4 Hs

Shivendu Nadkarni shared four lessons (the 4 Hs) from his personal experience. The first lesson was “heart greater than head” and he urged the students to use their heart along with head. “make trust your second nature, there will be a magical payback”, he said. The next lesson was “fuel your hunger”. One needs to have a constant hunger to win, succeed and make a difference. The third lesson that he shared was “patrol your health, invest in wellness”. He stressed that one should focus on work and personal life balance. The final lesson was to “embrace humility”, where he emphasised the importance of listening to understand rather than to respond.

The Chairperson’s Gold Medal for the first rank in the PGPM went to Palash Nayak Gaunekar while the PNB Gold Medal for the topper among women students went to Doppani Sravya.