While IIM-Ahmedabad has produced several top-notch executives, few have got into policy, academia and the government.
The Mumbai chapter of the IIM-A alumni felicitated three distinguished alumni who had chosen different paths — RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan, Director of IIM-A Ashish Nanda, and Maharashtra Chief Secretary Jageshwar Saharia.
Each of them narrated their experience of choosing and building their career.
The common theme running through was the role of serendipity in career choice and progression.
Serendipity Raghuram Rajan related how at an IIM class he actually wrote in an essay on careers that he wanted to be the Governor of RBI. But the path that he took to reach there had many twists and turns.
The first turning point, he recalled, was being accepted as a Ph.D candidate at MIT, for which he was initially denied a scholarship.
IMF stint The second turning point was an invitation, from Anne Krueger, then first Deputy Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, to join as Chief Economist at the IMF.
When he expressed misgivings about not knowing macroeconomics, her persuasive reply was, “welcome to the gang.”
He said that this experience helped him learn macroeconomics on the job.
And the third turning point was a call from C. Rangarajan two years ago, asking him if he would like to become the Chief Economic Advisor, just as he was feeling a bit restless and looking for a change. What also helped matters was that his son wanted to move to a boarding school at the same time. Becoming the advisor soon led to him to the RBI Governor’s job. Connecting the dots, Rajan said that while the career path may seem linear, it was not so.
Although there was hard work involved, there was also an element of luck, he said.
Ashish Nanda’s Journey Ashish Nanda talked about three turning points in his career. When an illness forced him to rest at home when he was working with the Tata group many years ago, his wife reminded him about his desire to join academia and urged him to to start applying for a Ph.D programme.
The second turning point was when he accepted an invite to move to the Harvard Law School. And the third transition was returning to India for an alumni meet, getting an offer to return as the Director, agonising over it and then accepting it, again at the urging of his wife.
He said that all three moves had helped him rediscover joy and fun at work. The advice from both Nanda and Rajan – follow your heart, take risks and learn new things. The rest and the best eventually follow.