Ishita Mishra

IMD Business School, Lausanne

“Mom to cute cocker spaniel, aiming to revolutionize financial inclusion in underbanked and underserved communities.”

Hometown: Odisha, India

Fun Fact About Yourself: I am terrified of swimming pools, yet serene and fearless in the open ocean.

Undergraduate School and Major: BITS Pilani, Goa Campus, India – Integrated MSc (Hons) in physics

Most Recent Employer and Job Title: J.P. Morgan Chase – AVP, Product Development

What has been the best part of being in a small class with this group of classmates? Learning about different cultures, industry, and job functions, both in the classroom and by working with a diverse group of five or six people, rotating in each module, is refreshing and inspiring. Everyone’s kindness and “let’s grow together” mindset turns collaboration into a masterclass in mutual growth.

Aside from classmates, what part of IMD’s MBA programming led you to choose this business school and why was it so important to you? I have worked towards fintech-driven financial inclusion in my career. This cause is very close to my heart as I hail from a very small town in India and have grown up around various underbanked and underserved communities. IMD offers world-class leadership coaching and a tech-savvy, global network, providing me the perfect launchpad to gather all the learnings I need to build a firm that scales inclusive finance worldwide. Six months in, I know I chose the right platform to realize my ambitions and make an impact in the world.

IMD is known for academic rigor. What is one strategy you used that would help a future IMD MBA better adapt to the workload early on? Prioritization and Organization are the two concepts that really made a difference for me this year. I would say, run the year like a product sprint: plan ruthlessly, prioritize without guilt, and time-structure everything from submissions and networking to weekend fun. I wouldn’t say it’s easy, but striking a balance becomes easier with time. 

Describe your biggest accomplishment in your career so far: During the first wave of COVID-19, streets emptied and supply chains were strained, but village markets still needed to trade. I led the launch of a merchant onboarding platform that reduced account-opening times for rural communities from weeks to hours. Watching shopkeepers in small towns and villages unlock digital payment enablement on the spot – with the rise of QR payments in semi-rural India, often on shaky 3G connections, in masks – felt impactful. In that moment, financial inclusion stopped being a slide deck and became real people, real livelihoods, real hope. This was my first effort towards financial inclusion and was the turning point in my career. Now, I didn’t just have an ambition. I had built an impactful and meaningful passion to give back to the community.

Describe your biggest accomplishment at IMD so far: IMD taught me how to balance performance with uncertainty. Be it the uncertainty of working with a diverse set of people – or the one where juggling multiple overlapping tasks might require us to decide where to draw the line in expending further effort. Balancing this variability with the drive to deliver my best work and be competitive is the biggest thing I learned. I feel I have done a good enough job at striking this balance, and that is my biggest accomplishment at IMD so far.

Where is your favorite hang-out in Lausanne? Why do you (and your classmates) gravitate there? We drift to the lakefront like magnets after long days in the classroom. The beautiful weather, calm and serene lake view, good food and drinks, shared laughter and meaningful conversations: They all contribute to reminding us why we came here: to learn, yes, but also to live fully!

What has been your best memory at IMD thus far?  IMD prepares you for real-world challenges while surrounding you with peers who quickly become both trusted friends and constructive critics. My defining experience was the three-day Leadership Lab. It was an intense and fruitful experience in which the bonds you have with your peers deepens, not only through appreciation for one another but also constructive feedback to help you grow. The process was demanding, yet it sharpened my leadership self-awareness, and accelerated my personal and professional growth. Even the lighter moments involving pizza, good-natured Borat impressions, and bringing out our goofy, authentic selves in front of one another added balance and transformed my first group members into my first genuine friends at IMD.

DON’T MISS: MEET IMD BUSINESS SCHOOL’S MBA CLASS OF 2025

© Copyright 2026 Poets & Quants. All rights reserved. This article may not be republished, rewritten or otherwise distributed without written permission. To reprint or license this article or any content from Poets & Quants, please submit your request HERE.