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Hi, my name is George Abraham, and welcome to this episode of Eyeway Conversations. Today, my guest is Ajay Minocha, a Credit Officer with the Deutsche Bank. He's an MBA from IIM Indore. Welcome Ajay to the show.
Thank you, George. Thanks for having me here.
Of course, a number of people have done their MBA's in the recent past, but it's still seen as a difficult space to be in. It would be nice if you can share your experience of how you got into the Indian Institute of Management at Indore. And what was your journey as a visually impaired person through your course?
Let me just start by saying and probably you may not also be aware of this that Eyeway's radio show, 'Yeh Hai Roshni Ka karwaan' played a very positive role here. I did hear the interviews by a couple of MBA's at that time. And there were a lot of different personalities whom you used to interview. So basically, then, I was just in the process of figuring out what do I want to do? And then I got really fascinated by okay, I mean, management is something new,or a corporate job is something new, which I have not seen many people with blindness, either doing or, even otherwise, as well. So I was like, okay, this is a bit fascinating. So it started off with that. And then yes, then I realized, through my network, social media and everything, I connected with quite a lot of persons who were actually interviewed on the show, I connected with them offline. And then I realized, yes, this is indeed very interesting. So I decided to sit for the CAT examination, which is necessary for entry into an IIM. And just after my graduation, I luckily got selected by IIM Indore. So during the B school, initially, it was very difficult for me because my entire schooling was from Hindi. And then in my graduation as well, I did not have much exposure in terms of various practical ways of doing things and even, you know, content subject matter knowledge as well. Whereas I was competing with probably countries, some of the brightest minds. So it was pretty difficult in the beginning, but the institute was very supportive right from providing study material in accessible format, to providing scribes who are able to understand what I want to dictate for my examinations. Also, providing like, asking PhD students to help with some of the difficult subjects like say, quant based subjects like quantitative analysis, operations, management, finance. They used to help me after the class so that I can I can cope up with the fast pace of curriculum. And then also at times, professors used to pitch in by conducting an oral examination or a viva where, say, for example, it's very difficult for me to explain something to the scribe, for example, drawing an economics diagram, or probably an assembly line diagram in an operations management paper, whereas I know how does it work, but it may be difficult for me to explain. So all in all, it was very supportive, the environment at the B school, although it was rigorous, but yes, all is well that ends well.
You are one of four visually impaired people today, who have successfully cleared the Chartered Financial Analyst exam. Finance is not an usual area where visually impaired people aspire to be in. How did you get interested in finance and how did you actually make your entry into a bank like Deutsche Bank?
That in itself is a pretty interesting topic, as in my entry into Finance. So, initially, when I went to the B school, I went with an approach that, yes, I don't want to take too many risks. I've seen quite a lot of visually impaired persons who are very successful in human resources. And I also want to do the same. In fact, a year at IIM has like three terms. First two terms I was completely focused, like, Yes, I want to make my career as an HR professional. I also got selected for an internship in the HR domain itself by a pharma company by the time I was in the second term of my MBA, but in third term, there was a professor who used to teach us finance, and was like, hey, wait, I mean, this is pretty interesting, the way he used to explain things. And he used to explain with common scenarios around us like, okay, if there is something then how does it impact say the markets, the society around us, the market around us? If there is an event? How would it translate into a tangible action point for everyone? How would it look back? So I became pretty interested in the subject. And then after my internship in HR, I realized, okay, this is second year, now I am anyways, and I was free to choose a pool of subjects. So I chose some of the HR domain subjects, but I also chose a fair bit of finance subjects as well. And my inclination was right, I indeed loved finance during that year, and then through when final placements came, I was by and large, clear that no, it would be probably finance. Then got selected by Royal Bank of Scotland, where I worked for two and a half years. And then, during my job, I also realized that an MBA is not enough if I want to increase my domain knowledge and subject matter expertise. And then I started appearing for the CFA examination. I connected with a couple of visually impaired persons from India who had done it in past and I was like, yes, probably difficult, but it's doable, definitely. So then it has three levels. I started in 2016. And by the time 2019 came, I had switched over to a different job in Deutsche Bank, and then I also cleared the final level of CFA.
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Now, your innings at Deutsche Bank, You know, from the outside, it sounds very formidable. It probably is formidable. But would you like to tell us a little bit about your day to day schedule? What are the challenges? What are the tools? How do your colleagues kind of engage with you? And what are the kinds of interesting things you do?
So, I almost have like now around six years of work experience in the banking and financial industry. Two and a half years with the Royal Bank of Scotland, in their debt capital markets division, and now since last three and a half years or so with Deutsche Bank. I would say something which has helped me is to communicate very clearly about what I am good at, what I'm not so good at. And what I absolutely cannot do being a person with vision impairment. So it has helped me a lot for example, I was initially selected by Deutsche Bank for a different role. And I didn't know much about the role honestly. First six months, I tried involving myself in the job. I was successful as well. But somehow I realized, okay, I mean, something is not clicking. So I then had a chat with my manager that this is probably not something which I want to do I want to do more something towards credit, which I feel it's more interesting for me. So then internally, I appeared for an interview and then I moved to credit. Whenever I start a new role, I make a point to have a detailed chat with my colleagues as well as my manager, the entire team as to okay what is vision impairment? How do persons with vision impairment actually work? I show them working of jaws and what are my strengths? What are my limitations. Which are the areas where I would need their support. So I have observed that actually helps to one break the ice with the team and two that ends lot of stereotypical thinking which generally people have about persons with blindness because honestly speaking, as you said, there are not many persons with blindness in incorporates or in finance these days as of now. And when it comes to my tools and day to day activities, my job is to analyze the creditworthiness of our banks large clients, corporate clients based in US and Europe. I do credit ratings and I am also responsible for extending different product limits, different products, banking products to the companies based on their requirements. I deal with quite a lot of their internal systems. And apart from that, it's fair bit of Office applications like Word, Excel, Outlook. I don't deal with PPT that much. And yes, I use OCR technology quite a lot, the optical character recognition to actually convert PDF documents into readable formats, like annual reports and all when I need any information. So I use those and yes, jaws is something which is my primary screen reader. But I also use NVDA quite a lot of times.
While we were kind of talking before the show, you also said that you were interested in reading and reading a lot of fiction. How important you think reading is for a young man growing up in India ? And how important is reading fiction?
I would say reading is very important, because it definitely widens your perspective. And I am more inclined towards fiction but I also enjoy reading a lot of self help books, which may be related to say technology, finance, human behavior and stuff. Fiction is something which helps me to de stress. I honestly started with the novels written in very easy language, easy to understand language way back in, say my IIM days in 2013. Because, honestly speaking, I had my challenges with the English language at that point of time. But slowly when I became comfortable, I then moved to foreign authors and other genres as well like self help books. I am personally not a very big user of audio books, I mostly use this very big online library for persons with vision impairment called Bookshare. So I use that. And I also buy quite a lot of books from Amazon Kindle, which is completely accessible on a laptop, desktop, or even a mobile phone.
You also have a keen interest in watching movies you said
So movies, and TV series are something which actually helped me to connect with quite a lot of my friends. So for example, be it a famous series called Game of Thrones, or be few of the PJ's from a comedy show like friends or Big Bang Theory. So those actually helped helped me to connect with my my friends, my circle in general, people used to watch, there were a lot of things to discuss. And as I said, they definitely widen your perspective about how do things happen in different parts of the world. How are movies built in different parts of the world. So as Bollywood and Hollywood movies are quite different, so I yes, I do go out. I used to go out rather with friends. Now It's COVID time, so theatres are virtually stopped. But yeah, I used to go out with my friends and family to watch the movies. They used to describe but one interesting thing which I use is audio description, which we don't have much of Hindi or Indian contented audio description as of now, but there is a lot of English content available in audio description. So there is this famous OTT service called Netflix, Amazon Prime both of them have audio description for their originally produced content. And also there is this website called audio volt which hosts audio tracks of quite a lot of famous movies and TV shows for persons with vision impairment. So audio volt is a free resource and Netflix and Amazon are paid but yes, the content library is quite rich and they are very wide varieties of things to choose from.
You have been in the mainstream when it came to your graduation, your management degree and then in the corporate world you know, and you did mention friends, how easy or difficult is it for you as a visually impaired person to actually make friends and engage with them and sustain relationships?
Um, I would say, it depends more on what common grounds you have with your friends. Yes, vision impairment does impact the equation, like I may not be able to be friends with someone who just plays cricket or a basketball. I know persons with blindness also play cricket, but it's played in a different manner. someone may or may not enjoy it. But I became friends with those people who have an interest in books, which I read, movies which I watch. My classmates from IIM, and say, School, College and now from my office as well. So honestly being an extrovert, someone who loves to talk, it was not very difficult to be friends with people. But yeah, I would say common interests coupled with your independence as a person helps quite a lot. So for example, if my friends have a plan, and they want to meet somewhere, all the time, they may not be comfortable in picking me up from my house. So I make it a point that I, I don't make them unnecessarily go beyond their comfort zone to help me. So for example, if they are meeting, I would probably book a cab and go there. Or earlier, when Uber and everything was not there, I would just walk on the road with my stick and grab something like a public transport and go. So I have been pretty particular about my mobility. Like I have to be independent. So be it using Google Maps, be it learning how to use walking with the help of a white cane. I think it has helped me quite a lot to become and be independent. And yes, it definitely helps with your social relationships as well if you are independent.
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You were not totally blind when you were born. You had extreme low vision to start with. And your early days, you did use a bit of your sight. And it was only when you were probably in High school or in College that you completely lost your vision. So can you kind of share with us a little bit of your journey from your childhood, in terms of how the world dealt with you? or how you dealt with the world? And yeah, it's exciting moments of that journey.
So I was born with Retinitis Pigmentosa, which is a degenerative eye condition. And I was born with extreme low vision, although my vision was good enough to walk on the road, unaided, especially during the day, and read and write, in, say, direct sunlight. So initially, during my school days, I often used to be seen sitting in the corridor in direct sunlight and writing my exams, probably in the month of May before, we actually have a summer vacation, and also in the month of January when it's extreme winter. So I mean, because there was no alternative other than sunlight. And then, like, my school was a Hindi medium school because at that time, there were not many schools who were open to have or give admission to someone with a blindness, they thought it's an uphill task, which they won't be able to do. And this was nearby, and somehow they agreed. So my parents were very focused on yes, I should get my education. And I should get it from a mainstream place where I am able to mingle with friends and society. Talking about my experience with the world generally, my family has been very, very supportive throughout and supportive not just in terms of providing for me, but also letting me explore things on my own so that I develop my own understanding about world and I get independent. So for example, even during my school days, if I had to go somewhere with my friends, my family never used to stop me just because I am blind. They definitely used to make sure that I am not in any undue danger, or there are trusted friends with me if I'm going somewhere, but they never stopped me from any experience. My sight was not well enough to say use a computer. So luckily, there was a seminar by one of the hospitals where I used to get myself checked about assistive technology. And then I got to know, in 2009, when I was in 12th standard that, okay, there is something called jaws. I mean, it was like a door open for me that even a visually impaired person can use a computer. After that day, there was probably no looking back. I asked my family, you know, I'm gonna learn this. Just when my board exams finished for 12 standard, they arranged for a tutor, and I started getting home tuition coaching for jaws. And within two months, I was reasonably comfortable with the software because I had a natural interest in technology. And after around one and a half years, I noticed that I'm almost burying my nose inside my book when I'm reading, which was not sustainable with, say, very heavy curriculum of my graduation days. So then I realized probably I need to move to eText, read with the help of scanners, scanning my books, converting them through E text, and probably some of the recordings because I was a commerce student, not all the books get converted very easily with OCR. So initially, it was a shock for my family. But by that time, I had seen quite a lot of visually impaired persons from different walks of their lives, including my computer instructor, who was himself a very, very independent person. So I was like, yes, I mean, it's difficult. But probably now it's easier for me to communicate with the word like, a person with low vision is always confused for either someone who is blind, or someone who can see quite a lot. So definitely, it's not a very pleasant experience. I was like, now it's clear that I can say I'm blind and I can focus on other tasks. So no shame from now on. That actually helped me, be it asking for help while traveling or be it anything else. That gave me probably a sense of calm and direction. And I could continue my studies with probably the least amount of impact or any disruption. So that's how it worked out.
Well, Ajay, it was a pleasure talking with you. And I would like to wish you the very best as you go forward in your life in your professional career, in your personal life. And keep safe.
Thanks, George
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