As we entered his office, the exuberance in atmosphere could be sensed from the goodwill this eminent person has earned over the years. Our eyes were glued to the bulletin board where the collage from his team members portrayed their admiration for him in the words: “wonderful, smiling, jovial, stylish, energetic, supportive, motivating, classy, empathetic”. This description was well-experienced by us and, in fact, it went way beyond it when the conversation started; and we were completely captivated by all his philosophies. Thanks to his achievements galore, he has been inspirational and the key driving force behind all the companies he has been associated with. The MBA days, the experience of getting into an entrepreneurial setup, and then growing as a core professional in the financial industry; all the key incidents were shared. The growth has been precipitous, yet the learning curve has always been gratifying for Mr. Samant Sikka.
Mr. Samant Sikka comes across as one of those unique individuals who have a very high aptitude for learning. His journey over the last 14 to 15 years is reminiscent of this fact.
Mr. Sikka always considered himself to be an average student but a lot of that changed the day he joined his MBA course. The two years at IIPM, he believes, were instrumental in turning around his life completely as they gave him a clear perspective of his career ambitions. He had the option of joining his family business immediately after the course but decided otherwise, and planned to take up a professional assignment. Mr. Sikka made it to Darashaw after a long and strenuous selection process, and thus began what was going to be a long and eventful journey in the corporate world. Darashaw was a Parsi familyowned business and provided him with the perfect fold to understand how the BFSI industry functioned in India. He joined the Delhi office and served eight long years with Darashaw. Mr. Sikka recalls the experience and says, “What clicked for me was the fact that the work culture was quite entrepreneurial, and since I came from a business family background, I could gel pretty well with them. I spent close to eight years with the firm. Looking back, I realize it was a good decision to join the company as it gave me good start in the financial industry and helped me understand the power and value of money.” By the time he moved on from Darashaw, the company had established its presence in almost all state capitals of India!
Not one to miss out on greater learning opportunities, Mr. Sikka then joined Franklin Templeton in India. His reason to move on to an MNC was pretty clear. “As I mentioned, my orientation was to basically to get into familyrun organizations and learn how they go about doing business, but at the same time I realized I should not miss out on the functioning of MNCs in India and their approaches to work. This is exactly what Franklin Templeton was offering.” His stint at the MNC enabled him to understand the importance of ‘processes’ and of the client. And today, this knowledge of how to create a ‘process-driven business entity’ has helped him create unique deliverables for the various organizations he has been associated over the years.
Mr. Sikka’s association with the organization lasted for three years, and then he decided to take up the opportunity that was offered by one of his earlier managing directors to work for AIG. AIG was, however, only starting out its business in India that time and he was required to set it all up for them. He recalls the decision making process, as he mentions, “I am a firm believer in learning by doing it yourself. It is the best way to learn. Just roll your sleeves up and jump in! You will never learn better.” Needless to say, Mr. Sikka embraced the opportunity and at the same time this experience allowed him to get the much-longed-for retail experience in financial markets in India.
AIG was also perhaps the first time that Mr. Sikka was in charge of a large team. As he set up the entire Northern division for the company, he had to deal with large team sizes. This was an added learning and also critical to his growth as an industry leader over the years. “Most roles I had handled at my earlier organizations were individualistic in nature. AIG’s stint changed that. I learnt the critical skills of people management. This is what I cherish most of my experience at AIG. Unfortunately, this stint was short and I spent only two years at AIG. I would have surely spent a lot more than that, but it was then that I was approached for a role with a company that any financial professional would die to work for – Goldman Sachs!”
Things were good there at Goldman Sachs until the infamous market crash of 2008. This cut short his assignment at the financial MNC to about 10 to 12 months. The ambitious person that Mr. Sikka is, he was always on the lookout for great avenues for constant learning. The market crash slowed down things considerably and with that, his exposure to newer experiences. He decided to move on and do what he did best, that is, roll up his sleeves and jump into the unknown. He decided to take up the assignment to join the founding team at AXIS Mutual Fund (AXIS MF). Mr. Sikka states, “ I joined there as a founding team member in the business. In terms of exposure, it was a far more focussed retail set-up than all the other organizations I was associated with. This was a 250-people organization; the largest set-up I had worked for so far had merely 100 people! Also, the scale was different. We were talking of a pan-India penetration,
which is completely different. And that is typical of Indian brands. They understand the retailing aspect of business much better.”
Mr. Sikka has been with AXIS MF now for close to three years and is enjoying every bit of the challenge the role is offering him.
A public speaker, he regularly speaks to the distributors and clients. Recalling his best learnings from the two years at the MBA course, Mr. Sikka equates it to “packaging”. He elaborates, “MBA is like the wrapper around the soap. Soap is essentially a generic product but the reason we pick up the soap is for its packaging. We remove the package and we use the soap. If we like the soap, we buy it again! So the key learning was that delivery matters. You may be from the IIMs, the FMSs or the XLRIs but you can only get picked from the store. Your repeat purchase depends purely on your delivery!”
Mr. Sikka reiterates that an MBA course is all about learning and that is IIPM gave him the great confidence to take on the world. He confirms that when he joined IIPM it was a pretty new set-up, and in Delhi it was FMS that ruled the roost. However, he is emphatic that IIPM gave him the right exposure, and in about two years after IIPM he was visiting the best campuses to recruit MBAs. “An MBA degree is great but what counts in the marathon of life is the learning that has happened during that course and thereafter consistently in life,” elucidates Mr. Sikka.
His fondest memories of the MBA days at the Lodhi campus constitute his one-on-one interactions with the professors at IIPM. “Prof. Kalra, Prof. J.K. Mitra and of course, Prof. PC Bagga and Prof. UC Banerjee! I was simply taken aback by the passion these individuals had for their jobs. Plus, the kind of bonds I could establish with my classmates, some of them are for life,” recollects Mr. Sikka.
Mr. Sikka’s understanding of leadership also reflects his natural experiences in the corporate world over the last decade or so. According to him, leadership is the confluence of two critical parameters, the organizational culture and the individual. “When I say individual, I mean his or her overall personality. The kind of attitudes, beliefs, and value systems the individual has and the kind of education this person has undergone,” explains Mr. Sikka.
He elaborates and explains that the reason we don’t see a thousand companies like the TATAs and Microsoft is because we don’t have companies that are passionate about their organizational culture and character. And this he believes is purely driven from the top. “You need a strong commitment from the top Management to build culture. That is number one. You cannot have a system where the top guy in the organization preaches something and practices the contrary. Number two is that becoming a leader requires the individual to make a lot of personal sacrifices and encourage your people at all times. It takes a lot of hard work and setting the right example,” comments Mr. Sikka.
His most admired leaders, he admits, are some of his previous bosses. He believes that he was extremely fortunate to be able to work with people who illuminated their presence simply by their passion for work. He primarily admires them for the quality of being level-headed at all times. Mr. Sikka terms this quality as “immunity.” He says, “You have to be extremely level-headed. There will always be ups and downs, just like the markets.
Married to Ms. Neha, who is herself an MBA from MDI Gurgaon and a professional in the same industry, he confesses that the last two years of work have affected his work-life balance and left him with very little time to pursue his passions. His message to young students and the many readers of the magazine is that to allow the first three or four years of your career be an add-on to your MBA course. These years are an extension to the learning and one should never lose passion for the job. “The day we get up in the morning and feel we are not excited about our work, we should not be doing that work,” he says.
