Meeting Saumya

 It is always refreshing to meet Saumya. Now a market researcher with Kantar, she used to be my Academic Associate for a couple of years at IIM Indore. My Lady Friday, for all practical purposes. Tireless, efficient and creative. No wonder my job became easy. 

Now, an accomplished pro in the industry I once worked in. So it's a pleasure to catch up, and we did. In Indore again. 

An earlier meeting at IIM Indore campus a few years earlier, when she was visiting the campus.

She also worked at Hansa Research in Bangalore with my friend Muthu, an industry veteran.

She also got me this lovely present-- 

Some Corporates I Encountered

 Worked for Living Media group, the publishers of India Today, in my first job. Before that, Widia who made cutting tools in Bangalore, for my internship.

Marketing Research company, MBA in my second job out of Bangalore and Mumbai. Met Muthu here, and we remain friends to this day.

The Kirloskar group, which founded KIAMS at Harihar. They had many engineering companies like KBL, KOEL and KPCL. We wrote a capstone case on KPCL, and did a BPR consulting project for KOEL.

We recently did MDPs for Whirlpool and the Tata Group (Retail) while I was at IIM Indore. This entailed some research into their operations. Of course, there were other MDP participants from various companies. At IMT Nagpur, we started an MDP for Asian Paints.

USPs of My Friends

 I had started this series sometime ago.. here are a few more with USPs that I noticed.

First, I will start with Students. 

At NMIMS, Muskaan- Agarwal, I guess. Nice smile. And good with the camera too. Divya Anand, for her fashion sense (an NIFT grad, after all), Ekalavya, the placement chief, for his dedication, like his namesake. Trishla Gupta, for her LinkedIn presence which is unique. The Gandhis, Kinjal and Tanya, for their names. Some BBA kids too, for winning an Entrepreneurship Award - led by Muskaan Behl.

Alumni, other B schools- Shatakshi.. non-confused, though she calls her Digital marketing firm Confused Genius. Meghna Sinha, paints a wide canvas. Prachi Jain, a one-time golfer who is a friend forever- a good actor too-I saw her live! Anusha Soni, a pal from Bhopal, Shuchi Bhatnagar too, and Pooja Shukla. Animesh Jain too. And Pallavi Sharma. Being Bhopali is a USP, because they are nice people, without exception. Anuja Anand, a poet and writer.

Tanaya Kar Chaturvedi- lively as hell! Harish Chaudhary- directions dene mein ustad- no wonder he directed us in a play at IIMB. Shweta Kushal- a kushal director and drinks partner! Bhagyalakshmi- an expert and a co-author in Branding books. Siddhanta Patnaik (no more), his interest in sports and life.

Abha Kulkarni.. it's not only the hairstyle, but style too. Sheetal Garg- one of the friendliest souls ever on my friend-list. Anshita and Tosha Dubey- great organisers of my get-togethers. That's a skill I like! Shruti and Aditya, gracious hosts. Vrinda Khanna, likewise. Savitha, loyal friend and first re-connect at Bangalore. Ishita Modi, for chai pe charcha- no, I am getting confused. Her wit! Pooja Varun, her farmer connect. Bharath Shenoy, coffee pe charcha, market research. Divya Sharmaa, TV star. Murli Mohan K, dancer of Kathak. Meghna Sinha, one of the first partners in a Mutual Admiration Society.

Vidisha, Rewa...place names. 

For nice pics with me, Siri Adi, Anuj Mathew, Meenu Mynam (her pic below), Aishwarya Iyer, Bharath Shenoy, Sapna Patni, Anam Nuhi, Harshad Sachani, Vaishali Bathla, Shruti, Aditya, Nikita, Vandana Kumar (one from the 90s too, at Tank Bund in Hyderabad), Sreelekha, entire placement team, at NMIMS. The P.R. team from last year also. Lokesh and Muskaan of Knowesis. Gowri and Shafique (IMT), recently. Rajiv Krishnan, from my school days.

Meenu Mynam, me and Harsh Halve at an alum meet of IMT Nagpur.

Below- the P.R. team of NMIMS Bangalore that includes Divya, and her seniors too. 

Nishka Rathi, for her love of books, and a unique profession- ghostwriting! Digital entrepreneurs, Abhinav Kamal (also a film-maker), Divya Singh, and Shatakshi. Anushka Mishra, for being a bookworm and seeking me out to be a friend offline. I am glad for it. Jogeswari, for starring in my Video case on Golftripz. Madhav Misra too.

Profs. - Narayani, Shahida from different institutes, for boundless energy, and never-say-die attitude.

T.K. Chatterjee, for his abilities at selling anything (I am sold), and passion for singing- I initiated him into karaoke! Gadgil, for his accent-American, of course. S.P. Kumar, for his enthu at 75+. Prabhakar (not a prof.), for his piano-playing  and wit. Rajan of India, aka ROI- coining names for profs. Thomas, likewise for various people and organisations around us. B.K. Mohanty, for fuzzy logic research. Smita Dabholkar, for her enthusiasm and energy. 

Garima Shah and Aditi Gupta for being women golfers (Anusha and Prachi too, later) at IMT, before I heard of Aditi Ashok, the Olympian.

Non-teaching. At KIAMS- Pavan, a party animal from Coorg. Rajesh Dixit from KIAMS, a nice guy. Vinod Jadhav, helpful always. 

Bangalored

It is always a pleasure to be in Bangalore. This time it was work that brought me here, and a highlight was discovering some places and even better, rediscovering people I had not met in some time.

I spent some time in the MR (Market Research) industry after my MBA, and one of my friends from those days is Muthukumar, who is still in the industry, while I veered off into academics. Our friendship grew over the years, and we independently started on Golf too. It was great meeting him and his family after a while.Here we are, at the KGA (Karnataka Golf Ass.) one evening.

Again, meeting old students is a given, as I try and catch up with my FB friends in person. This time I got lucky, and met three former students from different institutes-one at IBM, another into her own Exec Search frm, and the third at SAP. Also met my former assistant at Indore, Saumya, who works for Hansa research at Bangalore. And got to catch up with Aniruddh, an old friend who works for NetApp as a lawyer. Wonderful time spent with all.

The beer pubs are a great attraction, and I went to a couple of microbreweries that make exotic beer varieties.  Missed out on a few others (pubs and students), but there's always a next time