Sreenivas Gattu

Indian Institute of Management Bangalore

“Startup operator: Helping scale startups from 0 to 1 & 1 to 100, President of the EPGP cohort.”

Hometown: Hyderabad, Telangana

Fun Fact About Yourself: I paint, sing, play 3 different instruments and love playing football.

Undergraduate School and Major: MIT, Manipal University: B.Tech Mechanical Engineering

Most Recent Employer and Job Title: Vymo Technologies Pvt Ltd: Senior Associate – Product Marketing and Solutions Group

Aside from your classmates, what was the key part of IIM Bangalore’s MBA programming that led you to choose this business school and why was it so important to you? The challenging degree that it is, I came for the rapid learning that happens in and outside the classroom. I also appreciate the focus on balance: a balance between networking, academics, extra-curricular participation, entrepreneurship. All of this giving a 360-degree growth opportunity to everyone.

What has been your favorite course or extracurricular activity at IIM Bangalore? What has been the most important lesson that you have learned from it? It was the sports, cultural and business festivals and events.

As the president of the cohort, I’ve gradually started to lean in and understand what it means to have such a position of responsibility. Each of these events are opportunities to get the batch closer to each other and to people from other programs.

Over time, I learned to value getting the quieter, smart ones in the cohort to showcase themselves, along with getting different groups of people to successfully work together, and taking everybody along for the ride. This did not come to me instantly; it grew over the last few weeks and months.

What makes Bengaluru such as great place to earn your MBA? Bengaluru is the home of startups and big tech firms. You’ll find a variety of people, who think differently about tech, about AI, about MBAs, about design language. There are so many different opinions, but everyone has their own set of equally interesting views. A smart bunch like this can only be found in the tech capital of India.

Describe your biggest accomplishment in your career so far: Each career switch I made has been a total pivot. This includes going from being a PM in Mercedes Benz (large corporation), to being a GTM personnel in a Fintech startup (Vymo), to being the representative of this year’s EPGP batch.

Even when I was younger, being an army kid, I had to learn how to switch and adapt to each place I moved. Applying my strong skillset into my career is my biggest achievement.

Describe your biggest accomplishment as an MBA student so far: It was getting over 70% of my cohort to participate in icebreakers and war of sections (sports and cultural fests). These events were primarily made for the PGPs, who have a lot of time on their hands as compared to the EPGPs (at least 3 – 4 times more than us).

Despite that, our cohort had a 70% participation, coming 4th in the medals tally (icebreakers) and 40x more points (war of sections) than the EPGP cohort last year. Driving this intrinsic motivation in people, despite their busy schedules coming from a point of community and accountability towards their cohort, is something I’m really proud of.

What is your class’s favorite hangout away from school? Why do you gather there? My hostel room and the sports centre (these are outside class)! At the same time, I also enjoy exploring restaurants, cafes and breweries around Bangalore – a new one each time!

What do you hope to do after graduation? I hope to strengthen and build my career in product strategy and marketing. This time around, I want to widen my scope from just Fintech, healthtech, and manufacturing. I want to be someone who can apply my skillset into startups and big firms alike – spanning across multiple industries!

What advice would you give to help potential applicants gain admission into IIM Bangalore? I would tell them to be genuine about their application. You’d really need to have a lot of stories from your life that show everything you try to communicate during your application and interview processes. These real-life anecdotes make things genuine and also help you speak with a lot more conviction – after all, who knows better about yourself and your stories than you?

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