What was your position when you joined Great Lakes?  What position do you hold right now?

I was working as an Associate Consultant with a large multinational corporation prior to joining Great Lakes.  Currently, I work as a Consulting Manager for a large energy and petrochemical client, managing multiple projects in their Supply chain Portfolio across different countries

How has Great Lakes been a game changer in helping you grow in your career?

At Great Lakes, a great amount of focus is placed on student run activities. Be it Admissions, Placements, Branding, etc. Working as a core member in the Admissions committee, I gained tremendous experience in planning, networking and analytics. I developed the ability to step back and see the bigger picture, find method in madness and manage multiple dependencies and risks. These traits have significantly helped me in my current role. I am good at what I do, and to a large extent, its due to the experience gained at Great Lakes.

Can you think of an interesting incident or a talk given by a guest speaker or faculty that has made a profound impact in your life?

I was running point on our admission rounds in Mumbai in 2010. It was my first stint at managing a huge project. On one particular day, we were running significantly behind schedule due to various factors such as interview panelists not making it in time or cancellations, interviews running more than their allotted time, candidates coming in very late, ensuing confusion as to whether the documents verification has been properly carried out, and subsequent rework. The entire admissions team was in disarray. This gave me an opportunity to test whether I really had any management skills. I called for a halt in the proceedings for 30 mins, grouped with my team and clearly laid out a sequence in which we go forward. From the various status tracking sheets we had with different members of the team, I jotted down a single view of the current status of the day and asked that we then follow the laid out sequence strictly. It took some pains initially, but finally we were able to clear out the entire backlog, ensured candidates didn't need to wait for an awful amount of time and interview panelists were rotated and given periodic breaks. To this day, whenever I am caught in a complex situation, I remember that incident and that helps me manage the situation to the best of my ability

what are the two good things you feel proud about Great Lakes?

• Trust in students to manage crucial activities with regards to the institute
• Top of the line faculty

What new initiatives would take Great Lakes to go to the next level and how can Alumni contribute to it?

I believe we are making good strides towards becoming one of the top 10 institutes in the country. From my vantage point, I think we need bigger visibility among industry sectors other that IT and Consulting.