New Officers Elected There has been a change of guard at the Singapore Alumni Association, at the AGM held in February. Alok Sharma (PGP 1990) handed over the reins to Nayantara Bali (PGP 1988). 33 Members of the Association participated in the annual general meeting.
An Evening With….The association has introduced a new series of events called “An Evening with…” where alumni and their families can meet thought leaders at a cocktail event, and learn about hot topics of interest.
Our first event was an engrossing evening with Prof. Mohan Kankanhalli, Dean of the National University of Singapore School of Computing, on the topic of Artificial Intelligence. We all wonder about AI, and it was a pleasure to get a comprehensive big picture view of what AI is, what it can do and what its limitations are. The event was oversubscribed and the Alumni Association is already planning our next such event.
Pan IIM Singapore Women Evening Building on the momentum from the initial event, the second event began with a discussion of progress vis-à-vis our charter and there were two presentations by entrepreneurs. Over 250 IIM alumna have joined our mailing list and the “secret” Facebook group now has 120 members. This was an intense high-energy session, with a lively discussion on how to leverage this forum to meet the needs of this group. 36 Alumna attended (of which 12 were from IIMA).
Gauri Garodia (PGP 1996), founder of Code Deco (a prestige fragrance company), and Pooja Arora, founder of Flex Talent (which help match company projects with flexi-workers), generously shared their experiences and strongly emphasized the importance of promoting oneself, upskilling and networking.
Synchrony in Singapore The annual Synchrony event was held to welcome our four summer trainees and introduce them to the alumni. To add some spice to the event, we organized a quiz with quiz-master Jaideep Mukherjee (a former winner of the Singapore Mind Amaze). As expected, the alumni had lost none of their competitive spirits and it was a close battle across nine rounds, with teams answering questions on subjects ranging from of the Indian Penal Code to words originating in the Odyssey. There was even a special visual round to cater to Bollywood aficionados. Finally, after two hours, Team Olivia Newton Circus bested teams Winwiporeans and Four Weddings and a Funeral to win the grand prize of a chocolate hamper.
Singapore IIM A Women’s Forum: Pan IIM women’s forum was started about 6 months ago. It was kicked off by Nayantara Bali (PGP 1988) Anu Raju (PGP 1989) and Vidya Vasania (PGP 1994) and with strong support from Salonee and others it has gained momentum. We have around 80 IIM alumnae in Singapore. Our senior most alumna is from the 1983 batch and we have all the way till about 2014. We have had 2 events – Dec 2017 and March 2018. Our next event focused on mentorship and personal financial planning is on 12 July. Our mission statement is ‘Smart women helping smart women succeed and make a difference’. Our efforts are in the following areas:
- Mentorship to succeed in corporate roles/start own business/ entrepreneurship
- Mentorship and assistance on returning to the workforce after a hiatus – we are trying to leverage our IIm and other networks to help women get ‘return ships’
- Mentorship and networking to enable our senior women get Board roles.
- Getting connected with senior women leaders in Singapore
- Getting integrated into the local community
We would love to play an active role in the institute to take the efforts in India global.
