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Professional experience and academics

I was fascinated by the field of finance after a brief internship with BNP Paribas. After under graduation, I

decided to work for one of the leading Investment banks of India in their risk management division. With my

analytical and technical skill sets in place, I enriched my learning and got the necessary overview of finance by

taking the CFA level 1 examination, the Financial Risk Management examination and reading books ranging

from "The Intelligent Investor", "The Black Swan" to "Dynamic Hedging. Working for past 3 years, I have

gained relevant experience and I am now in a position to further strengthen my skills and make most of Tepper's

Dual MBA/MSCF program. I believe that I can contribute to classroom discussions by questioning with a

practical bent of mind, putting into perspective industry experience. I will use this experience to contribute to

and also learn from others by being part of various career focused clubs like Alfa.

Cracking brain teasers is something that gets me mentally stimulated. I was a key contributor to an informal

group called the Friday Puzzle Group at Edelwesis Capital. We collected and created various kinds of

brainteasers and members were challenged every Friday. The incentive to be the quickest person to solve the

challenge was to achieve a common aim of intellectual satisfaction. I will bring this out of the box thinking

ability to classrooms and to extra-curricular activities involved both in MBA & MSCF programs at Tepper.

As David Tepper says: "We should all try to learn it, earn it and return it"

I am really keen to give back to others what I got from every person that made a difference in my life. During

my stint at Edelweiss Capital, I volunteered with "Edelgive" - the NGO arm of the firm. I taught spoken English

to night school students, most of whom were laborers living in the slums of Mumbai. It was a humbling and

enriching experience to see the unmatched grit and determination they had working at car garages and

restaurants during the day for a pittance and getting a school education at night.

During the summer of 2009, I volunteered for Naandi Foundation - an NGO focused on Child Rights. They

collaborated with Bombay Municipal schools to raise funds, enhance the curriculum and teaching methods,

improve the infrastructure and encourage low income families towards literacy. I helped in building and testing

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an MIS system, in co-ordination with a vendor, with the primary aim of capturing, storing and analyzing data

for performance tracking of students and teachers at Naandi Schools. I worked in parallel on strategizing and

implementing a publicity venture, with the immediate focus of making a video promoting Naandi Schools for

their target audience - the donors, the Municipal Corporation and the low income families. The challenge here

was to come up with a one cut video that appealed to a very diverse set of audience.

Strength lies in differences, not in similarities

As a female born and brought up in an educated Muslim family in India, a predominantly Hindu country, I

appreciate the blending of bright people from different cultures. Living in a city where you find a Mercedes

speeding the same road a bullock cart is trudging, where on one day you experience dancing in one of the finest

night clubs in a world class five star hotel and the next day celebrating by dancing on the road adjoining it for a

Ganpati Visarjan has a charm of its own. Mumbai has exposed me to a potpourri of languages, styles, food

and flavors where each contributes its own to make the city what it is. This diversity is what I reflect too and

what I'll bring with me to the classroom. It will further help me in bringing the diverse Tepper community

together.

Most effective leaders are team workers

Since school swimming and sculling have been my passions and I have won various club level and state level

championships. For sculling conducted in quads and doubles it is imperative that the movements be precise and

coordinated among the team members. Being the member who commanded the strokes, I understand the power

of working in a team over having even the strongest individuals grouped together but uncoordinated. This team

spirit will help me work in groups at Tepper, be it in classroom discussions or as a part of communities offered

at the school.

With all these experiences I would like to actively participate in the Tepper community by not only learning

from my instructors and fellow peers but also contributing by putting my professional experience, cultural

diversity, leadership abilities and team spirit.