11 - 2018 - Asia School of Business

An engineer by training and a successful former manager in the aerospace and aviation defense industry, Jatin Sehgal has worked with industry giants including Reliance Defence and Engineering Ltd. Recently, as part of his recent Action Learning trek, he fulfilled a dream to work with a company he has always admired: Boeing. Jatin is a hard-working and good-natured New Delhi native whose plans after his MBA are to further his newfound passions in corporate finance and investment banking.

We caught up with Jatin from MBA Class of 2018 recently for a quick Q&A about his experiences at ASB.

Tell us about your career background and what you were doing before ASB.

I was an engineer by training. After graduating, I chose to pursue a career in Business Development in the Defense Aerospace Infrastructure Development industry. I have worked across the private sector on Joint Venture (JV) projects as well as with government departments to sign Memorandum of Understanding (MoUs).

Why choose ASB?

ASB provides you a platform that blends the west’s education with east’s application. This is a must-have for today’s globalized corporate world. To complement the blend of east and west, ASB also blends rigorous classroom theory with practical onsite action learning projects where we apply what we learn. In short, it prepares battle-ready soldiers for the corporate world.

What has been the highlight of the MBA 3.0 curriculum?

Every day has been challenging, every class has been interesting, and every professor has taught me new concepts. It’s difficult to pick a single highlight – but it’s the full package combined that makes this experience so worthwhile!

What has been the highlight of Action Learning?

Going through more half of the project and then realizing that the initial project scope was incorrect, modifying it and completing the project well in time with client’s complete satisfaction. In short: fail, forward, excel!

How have you changed as a person since joining the course?

On a personal level I have become more independent, more curious, more open, and more of a risk taker than I was before.

How have you balanced your personal life and a hectic full-time program?

I have a saying when it comes to ASB: “At ASB you can have only two out of three: studies, friends or sleep.” Well, I love my friends and hate to compromise on my academics. Not to worry, though; one gets enough long weekends in Malaysia to catch up on sleep and ensure one’s well-being.

Who should apply to ASB in future rounds of applications?

If you have passion to be a leader in the Asian ecosystem, the drive to lead, take calculated risks and make an impact, then you are the perfect fit for ASB.

A year ago, I made one of the best decisions of my life: to embark on an MBA journey with the Asia School of Business established in collaboration with MIT Sloan. Having always been fascinated by the different cultures and diversity across South East Asia, I was very excited to work with Procter & Gamble in Myanmar for my first regional Action Learning project and with Axiata, a regional telecommunications conglomerate, in Cambodia for my second.

Working with people from diverse backgrounds and cultures in growing markets such as Myanmar and Cambodia has taught me invaluable lessons both personally and professionally. I’ve summarized some of my favourite takeaways from my Action Learning projects below:

Team and host communication are crucial to project success. We would meet our hosts regularly within the week to keep them updated of our progress. I found it very helpful as our hosts would provide feedback on our market research and the data we analysed. We also learned our hosts’ management styles so we could align our expectations to theirs.

Your team will always have your back. During our second onsite visit in Myanmar, which lasted almost two weeks, one of our team members caught a bad viral infection and needed to be on a drip, and I severely injured my back which, as a result, limited my range of movement. It was very stressful because there was so more market research that needed to be done but we learned to realign our team’s expectations to our current situation. Luckily, we had each other to rely on.

Want to understand local culture and brand perception? Conduct home interviews. Home interviews are the best way to understand the local culture and the end user’s perception of a brand: Many Burmese families, especially in cities, live in apartments and buy most consumer products including cosmetics from the stores below their apartment blocks. My Action Learning team and I would visit home after home with a translator to conduct interviews. It was an exhausting task, as we needed to climb many flights of stairs just to talk to a handful of people. Nevertheless, it was truly a pleasant experience as they are very welcoming even though they barely knew us.

There’s a world of possibilities in start-ups and incubators. The start-up community had never been particularly exciting to me until I joined ASB and started engaging with entrepreneurs in Cambodia. Among these entrepreneurs, a common trait is grit – they would get back up as many times as they needed to, because failure is never an option. I remember meeting an entrepreneur and talking for over 2 hours about his idea and how passionate he was about the potential for growth of his business!

Value bonding time with team members. We would spend time exploring food in Cambodia and I got to know my team on a personal level as we ate most, if not all, of our meals together. I even had a memorable birthday celebration with my team while we were there. This bonding helped with our project too, as we understood how each team member thought individually and could increase overall team effectiveness through honest feedback amongst ourselves.

Month: November 2018