“When the sun is shining, I can do anything; no mountain is too high, no trouble is too difficult to overcome”- Wilma Rudolph

With an intense passion for mountaineering and so many challenges and life-threatening confrontations during expeditions, I have learned many enduring lessons. No path to success is easy and challenges are difficult until you confront them. Time and again, my faith in teamwork gets reinstated during mountaineering. It is because of efficient teamwork that I have been able to successfully complete the Everest Base camp trek and Kalapathar mountain ascent. Challenges zest me up. This is evident from the fact that I have taken up the demanding “Messner Seven Summit Challenge” out of which I have successfully completed the Mount Kilimanjaro expedition. Adding to this, I picked up the quality of perseverance from the team sports and football that I often play.

‘The best way to predict the future is to create it’. These words by Peter Drucker have strongly influenced my decision to follow my father’s footsteps and become a successful entrepreneur. This buoyed me up to study Bachelor’s in Business Administration from Lancaster University (LU). Here I was enriching my life from a 360-degree perspective. In the classroom, I learned about business models and strategies and elsewhere I was honing my people skills and establishing relationships for mutual exchange of knowledge and ideas, friendship and networking with people from diverse ethnicities. While I learned about business management during my under-graduation, I still felt the need to delve into the subject of entrepreneurship and learn the associated technicalities better. For this, I want to obtain a master’s degree in entrepreneurship.

My family has been an eternal source of strength and encouragement. Seeking inspiration from the Indian fables often told by my grandmother, I always made diligent efforts to polish my teamwork and leadership skills. Gradually, from being a shy school boy, I became more participative in class and other school activities.

I joined Lancaster University (LU) with twin intention of becoming independent by coming out of the protective veil of my family and to get global exposure and internationalized learning. I’m glad that both my intentions were duly accomplished. Here too, apart from excelling in academics, I ensured that I maximize my social interaction. Carrying forward the legacy of school time, at LU also, I engaged myself in several extracurricular activities like the university newspaper team, football, Indian fests organizing committees and alike. During the tenure of 2012-15, I had the honor of being the President of several university societies like LU Management Science Society, LU Indian Society, LU Asian Society and LU United Nations Society. Here, I was responsible for organizing conferences and collaborative events and source funds and carry out marketing campaigns effectively. Here I conducted two conferences on “open world” and “nuclear disarmament”. Likewise, in 2013-14, I was the Vice-President for the National Indian Student Union of UK. In 2013, I had founded the Departmental Society of Management to connect students with alumni and companies to get projects, internships, simulations and form study groups and twice instigated student forum to develop an engagement team to work towards the holistic development of the Indian community in the UK. Here I ensured to represent the issues of Indian students to the management, conducting collaborative events with the national bodies, fundraising for the society and fostering better student-alumni interaction. Further, I led a society campaign to win the university organized event, LU World Sports Cup. Moreover, I got the opportunity to test my managerial competence during the final year simulation project. It involved negotiating skills wherein my team had to negotiate with a hospital for equipment supplies. This helped me realize that I need to improve my negotiation skills and leadership is not merely directing or leading but it is more about motivating people. I kept motivating my teammates to strive harder and finally, we were able to present a business proposal with a specified timeline and mutually profitable quotation.

My professional endeavors have been equally diverse. In 2015, I joined my family business, Jagdamba Cutlery Private Limited based at Sonipat, Haryana. This was the real “acid test” for my competence. My teamwork, leadership, communication and people skills, all were under strict scrutiny and it was a challenge to develop cohesive teams with people from diverse cultural backdrops. However, I started influencing the design team and eventually, made it a “team” in every sense. My hard work started reaping results when I joined the project development team that works with the international clients like Gibson, Walmart, Carrefour, Kmart etc. and handles product development, right from conception to delivery. It was here that my leadership skills were actually testified. Within a year of joining this team, I was promoted to the director. This boosted my self-confidence and leadership skills. In 2016, led the acquisition of Plugged Magazine from LUISC, for which I had been an editor in the past. This is a platform for photographers and artists to showcase their creativity. I have been successful in achieving a readership of 10000 with only two quarterly issues.

I aspire to establish my own entity by getting into retailing of the food and beverages sector. For this, I need to consolidate my skills of business management, project management, and entrepreneurship and MSc Entrepreneurship is the most appropriate course. The one-year comprehensive course of MSc Entrepreneurship offered by XXX university enables the student to develop critical thinking and a better understanding of international management, thereby, augmenting individual competencies to excel professionally in diverse fields ranging from job to entrepreneurship. The analytical approach of the teaching pedagogy of the institute imparts a distinctive permutation of theory and practical learning in the backdrop of globalization. Also, I can contribute significantly to the welfare of the University in multiple ways and make my family and faculties proud.