Strategic Finance with Dr. Pankaj

From setbacks to strength: shaping tomorrow’s leaders through failure.  In the bustling corridors of a B-school, where ambitions hum louder than conversations and the CVs are dressed better than the students themselves, failure is a word often buried under rankings, resumes, and recruitment dashboards. And yet, if there's one curriculum every successful person has secretly passed through, it's not finance or marketing; it's a failure. Many of you come into my cabin with a storm inside. Some tremble with the fear of unpaid loans, some with the shame of not being shortlisted, and others simply with the exhausting pressure of being "strong enough." But what if I told you that failure is not a deviation from success; it's the hidden foundation on which some of the most remarkable lives have been built? Take Amitabh Bachchan. Today, he's the Shahenshah of Indian cinema. But before the megastardom, he was rejected by radio for his deep voice and by producers for...

  From campus to career: Vision into action. In business schools nationwide, eager MBA students often immerse themselves in finance models, marketing frameworks, and case simulations. These are essential instruments in the toolkit of a business leader. But a toolkit alone doesn't build a house. And too often, graduates walk into corporate hallways equipped with polished degrees but untempered instincts, fluent in models yet underprepared for moments that don't come with templates. If success in the industry is a long-haul flight, academic training is only the boarding pass. The rest—the journey itself—depends on altitude, navigation, and response to turbulence. The first misstep many make is to chase jobs rather than craft careers. A job, like a rented apartment, offers shelter and some comfort. A career, however, is more like owning a home; it demands upkeep, investment, and vision for the future. To build one, MBAs must move beyond the syllabus and cultivate the invisible cur...

  Crafting Leaders. Shaping Futures Together Walking Into the Forest, Not the Boardroom After more than thirty years in business education and the corporate world, I’ve come to see the MBA journey not as a march into a boardroom, but as a walk into the forest. Students arrive with polished resumes and sharp ambitions, expecting a simulation of corporate life. But what they find is something far more profound: a rehearsal for navigating uncertainty, complexity, and self-doubt. It’s not about stepping into power—it’s about learning to walk with purpose. An MBA, when it’s done right, isn’t a degree—it’s a compass. It doesn’t hand you a script. Instead, it teaches you how to read maps, adjust for storms, and trust your internal bearings. The classroom becomes a workshop for this compass, but the real lessons unfold outside: in group discussions that test your patience, in assignments that reveal your blind spots, and in internships that demand adaptability more than technical skill. Cu...

  Cultivating Wealth Through Value Investing Imagine you're walking through a vast orchard. All around you, trees bear fruits—some overripe, some spoiled, and some that don't look extraordinary but carry the promise of rich, sweet flavour if given time. In the world of investing, these trees are stocks. The overripe fruits are expensive, flashy stocks—often hyped and already priced high. But the ones that seem modest yet quietly grow stronger every season? Those are your value stocks.   In "11 Secrets to Find Value Stocks," Apurva Parikh is an expert horticulturist—teaching us how to spot the right fruit-bearing trees early to cultivate wealth patiently and wisely. Let's walk through this orchard and learn the 11 signs that tell us we're looking at a truly valuable stock.   1. Low P/E Ratio: The Modestly Priced Tree   Think of this as a fruit vendor offering mangoes at a much lower price than others—but they're just as sweet. A stock with a low pri...