– Kalpen Shukla (PGP86), President, IIMAAA-Mumbai

“People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” – Maya Angelou

Who wouldn’t love to meet and interact with a community that welcomes its ‘yet-to-become-members’ with so much warmth and whole-hearted grand reception? That’s what Synchrony offers to the Fachchas and Bachchas – and seniors make best efforts to ensure they go back with lifelong memories.

Not a dull moment and not a corner unoccupied at the most happening venue (“Drinkery51”) in the most admired business hub bristling with corporate offices. We exclusively occupied one of the most coveted ‘Bar-cum-Restaurant’ to offer an evening with a celebrated DJ accompanied by blaring music and busy dance floor. It’s a unique sight to see a retired alum (having played his corporate inning for 35+ years) matching steps on the dance-floor with a young aspirant awaiting to join the exclusive group who would enter the mighty portal of WIMWI.

Synchrony-2018 set another benchmark with 225+ participants who joined us on May 12^th (Sat). Albeit, IIMAAA-Mumbai has regularly exceeded its own benchmarks for many years, this one appeared to be a daunting task when Exec Comm came to know about presence of 150+ Interns and 60+ Freshers in Mumbai. It almost dictated that barely 25-30 local alumni could be accommodated (unless a very large banquet hall of 4/5-star hotel was hired). Nonetheless, as it happens every year, the very enthusiastic EC Members (Ravi, Prasad, Pratik & Omkar) pulled a successful coup by negotiating and engaging the most appropriate venue despite the paucity of time and budgetary constraints!

We are always fortunate to receive energetic Intern Coordinators in Mumbai. Aakash, Ashish & Saumya were the chief architects in ensuring this overwhelming participation. Although till May 8^th, they gave us a scare since minimum guarantee for guests was 200. Notwithstanding all the delays, they mobilised 100+ registrations in 1 day! While IIMAAA-Mumbai may surpass the participation of 225, this one record appears nigh impossible to beat. Commendable efforts and networking by this team.

IIFL Wealth was the Gold Sponsor and Nine Rivers Capital was co-sponsor. Noteworthy to mention that, IIFL has been a very consistent support for all IIMAAA-Mumbai activities since the 1^st event in 2013.

Simple moments of Joy and the Art of being Happy together! To enjoy and re-live these lively moments, please visit https://drive.google.com/open?id=1L3mtkYpOT79aTpfizkrqfWks8nEDswWN

Write-up from Intern Coordinator Team – Aakash, Saumya, and Ashish

Synchrony 2018 was a landmark event in more than one ways, and it owes its accolades in large part to the Mumbai scene. This was the first time a Synchrony chapter saw a crowd of more than 225 people – which included the incoming batch, the interns, the immediate graduates, and the alumni from the years gone by. Another item in the list of firsts is the debut of the ‘We Are WIMWIans’ movie, which was especially produced by the Alumni & External Relations Committee (AERC) for welcoming the facchas into the IIMA family.

Needless to say, there went a lot of planning and execution into making the event successful. Starting with the ideation for the video in March, Aakash, Saumya, and I made it a point to stay constantly in touch with each other throughout, and space out our effort so as to not compromise on our internships.

The Mumbai chapter was extremely helpful and accommodating of our concerns. The bottom-line for this edition of Synchrony was to keep the entry fee for facchas, which is a big task in itself for the Chapters in terms of the funds required. Moreover, the entrance fees had also to be subsidized for others to ensure attendance. The Chapter was able to pull it off; the catch being that volume was to be maximized in order to honor the guarantee of a minimum attendance number to the venue – which in itself was upscale, compared to usual Synchrony venues.

Thereafter, there was no looking back. The three of us, with the help of the rest of AERC, tried our best to publicize Synchrony Mumbai on multiple platforms, as well as our individual employers. No stone was left unturned to convince our batchmates to attend the event. Everything – from personal WhatsApp texts to phone calls – paid off when we started facing difficulty in managing the numbers at the entry to the venue. The screams and applaud for the Synchrony movie thundered the hall, and the foot-tapping nearly broke the dance floor – this Synchrony had set a target difficult to achieve in the future.