The fourth edition of Colloquium — the annual series of guest lectures by industry leaders and corporate honchos — began at IIM Ranchi on Saturday. Ashu Malhotra, HR Head of e-commerce giant Jabong.com visited the campus as part of the event.
The other guests at the event were Professor Ashish Hajela, the Placements Chairperson of IIM-R and Professor Tanusree Dutta. The session began on an auspicious note with Chitra, a student of PGPHRM 2013-15 batch, singing the Ganesh Vandana to invoke the blessings of the divine. This was followed by Professor Hajela inviting the guest to deliver a speech and invoking the students to engage in an enriching and meaningful interaction with the distinguished guest.
Ashu Malhotra, a post-graduate student from XISS, Ranchi and holding multiple certification courses from IIMA, IIMB, MDI, Carnegie Mellon University, has been in the industry for nearly 22 years. He has had stints with biggies like Dabur, Max India, Hero Moto Corp, Bharti Airtel before joining Jabong three months back.
Malhotra started the speech by sharing his insights about life outside the college. He dwelt on the harshness of the corporate world and how we cannot rest on our past laurels once we are out in the open. He invoked the students to aim big in life and to be good human beings by connecting with people around us (people orientation), respecting others in the company and learning constantly from the immense knowledge repository that lies around us.
Malhotra further elaborated about how e-commerce in India is only at the tip of the iceberg and how the Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities will be the centres of the explosive growth that is to come. He clarified how GenY was not looking for money but for meaningful roles and how Jabong can and should be the favoured destination of brilliant students like the ones in the audience.
Malhotra ended the event by showing a video of the inspirational journey to success of the pole-vault legend Sergey Bubka and he had a final word of advice for students: “Stay ahead of competition, take life very seriously, take full charge of your life and have a very beautiful life ahead.”