Madhusudan Gopalrajgopalan,COO and Co-Founder, ARANCA shares his strategy with the MBA students at WeSchool
“Things happen; your fanciest plans go haywire and life changes ,it’s a VUCA world out there”said Madhusudan Gopalrajgopalan,COO and Co-Founder,ARANCA ,at the outset of his dialogue with the new entrants at WeSchool. Founded in 2003, Aranca is a global research, analytics and advisory firm empowering decision makers from Fortune 500 companies, financial institutions, and high potential start-ups with intelligence and insights to make better business decisions. An alumnus of IIM-B and IIT-M, Madhusudan co-founded Aranca, and has enabled the organization to emerge as a key player in the custom research and analytics space. As COO, Madhusudan leads Aranca’s client-centric strategies across the business functions of Aranca. He shared some pertinent pointers from his strategy to personal and professional success and making a difference in the global arena.
“Persistence, Agility, Curiosity, keeping an open mind and an attitude of learning are the most important factors in building your career and life. When things begin go wrong, don’t get on to the self-pitying mode. Look at the situation with a learning attitude, try to understand, what the takeaway is for me in this and then change things around “, he advised while sharing his journey of establishing a consultancy business and taking it to pinnacle of corporate excellence.
Talking about the choices he made while giving up a lucrative corporate career to take up the entrepreneurial path, he said,” The world of Start-Ups is glamourized a little too much. Ask yourself, am I an entrepreneur? Here, you will have independence but your risk capita will be very high, you will face resource crunch, times will be tough and there may come a time when you may have to start all over again. You will have to think about the crucial work-life balance.”
“Think about the world from a larger perspective; look at the big picture beyond the sphere of your life. What can I do to make the world a better place for others to live in? People who do that find more meaning in career and life. We have had the privileges, the opportunities, so please understand that you have the responsibility to make a positive impact in someone else’s life .Find that something that you connect with, the cause will give fulfillment to your life.” said the strategic thinker who works with a number of charities like ‘Make a wish foundation’, and ‘Ammucare Charitable Trust (ACT)’.An avid runner and a regular at marathon events through which he raises funds for charities close to his heart , he also had personal tip to share, ”Pick up a new skill every year. Everything need not go the contribute to the job or to the career. If you grow as an individual, that’s a value-add in itself “
