Rajesh Mohan

IIM Lucknow

“Passionate about solving common man’s problems through technology.”

Hometown: Chennai, Tamil Nadu

Fun Fact About Yourself: I love trekking and want to spend as much time as possible outdoors!

Undergraduate School and Major: B. Tech – Chemical Engineering, Anna University, Chennai

Most Recent Employer and Job Title: Manager, Operations at Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited, Kochi Refinery

Aside from your classmates, what was the key part of IIM Lucknow’s MBA programming that led you to choose this business school and why was it so important to you? The Incubator, which promotes entrepreneurship, and the international immersion programme, with a good partner institute in Europe were the key aspects which made me to choose IIM Lucknow. The incubator is the first of its kind among all IIMs.

What has been your favorite course or extracurricular activity at IIM Lucknow? What has been the most important lesson that you have learned from it?  Marketing Management has been my favorite course at IIM Lucknow. Coming from Engineering background, I had enough exposure to operations and technical fields of refining. But I always wanted to learn about Marketing. And what more can you ask in the field of marketing than studying at IIM Lucknow!! At IIM Lucknow, I came to know that Marketing is an art of providing the right product to the right customer at the right time. The various frameworks and methodologies of identification of target market through segmentation targeting and positioning were some of the takeaways for me from the course.

Describe your biggest accomplishment in your career so far: I received the National Award for Best Energy Auditor from Ministry of Power, Government of India in 2015. I consider this achievement as an acknowledgement for my efforts, in the field of energy conservation.

Describe your biggest accomplishment as an MBA student so far: I started loving subjects that I never dreamt of studying. One is Economics. This was thanks to the professors for changing my attitude towards the subject. I developed great interest in Game theory and I started following other books to understand the subject deeper as it has repercussions in our day-to-day life and in geopolitics too. I feel that this is one of my biggest accomplishments as an MBA student. Add to that, academically, I’m among the top 5 students in the batch.

What is your class’s favorite hangout away from school? Why do you gather there? I prefer spending all my free time on campus and exploring the various nooks and corners of the 20 acres available to us.

What led you to pursue an MBA at this point and what do you hope to do after graduation?  My 12.5 years of project management, consultation, and operations management experience in the oil industry has been extremely rewarding. I developed solid leadership, analytical and problem-solving skills while driving several important process improvement projects.  My experience in BPCL helped me to improve my presence of mind and respond to crisis situations swiftly and take important decisions within a short span of time.

Though I was confident about my technical skills, I felt a need to know more about subtle aspects of HR, finance and marketing.

The disruptions in the Oil Industry – be it higher crude prices, discovery of shale oil or gas, higher taxations by government, shift towards gas and other cleaner fuels, progress in renewables, lesser availability of fossil fuels, and privatization of PSUs like BPCL – have brought about an uncertainty in the energy field.

I felt a need to upskill myself to face these disruptions with ease and convert these disruptions as opportunities to achieve my target of shaping public policies in the long run. With dynamic changes taking place in the energy field with sustainability and green energy as focus, I wish to leverage my work experience and learnings from IIM Lucknow to get into domain consultancy in the energy sector.

What advice would you give to help potential applicants gain admission into IIM Lucknow? Being one of the top IIMs of the country, competition is high. A decent GMAT score coupled with a good work track record and extracurricular activities could help one gain admission into the prestigious institute. The Institute loves diversity and hence people from varied fields are encouraged by institute to apply. Apply early so that you stand a better chance to convert your application in case you are waitlisted.

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