By Raghav Mehrotra | EEP 2026
At age 32 I have 12 years of varied work experience! The variety has not been out of necessity but by choice. The fundamental guiding principle being learning, enjoyment, and not really the reward. Yes, lady luck has smiled; but then fortune does favor the brave.
I look at work as a medium to spend energy towards growth in this game of life. It fills your waking hours with a thrill, purpose, adrenaline-induced high, self-esteem and confidence. The idea is to interact with a diverse set of people and build respect, dignity, and at times, even awe for stellar achievements.
As an AI Product Manger my journey has been unconventional to say the least.
I set up a good academic foundation for myself, being a child of the armed forces, I changed 13 schools, and I ended my schooling with topping my school and the country in a few subjects in CBSE board exams. Thereafter I studied history at St. Stephen’s College and then LLB at Jindal Global Law School on a near 100% scholarship. Most recently I undertook the year long Senior Management Program at our alma mater.
During St. Stephen’s itself, the ‘work’ bug hit me. I apprenticed at a printing press, worked as a manager for garbage collectors and cataloged a library. I realized early that ‘real work’ with real people is a sound education.
Thereafter I moved on to moving bales of cloth in my father’s textile warehouse, became a Storekeeper and experienced real time bookkeeping and marketing of a traditional low-tech business set up. All for the fun of it. looking back, the KASH was more important than cash at that stage. This early work helped in shaping my personality to learn the most valuable of all professional skills, the ability to cross learn. This has helped me approach problems with ‘all’ my experience and not only the experience in my sunrise niche.
I put my efforts into a more cognitive space and picked up a Law degree from Jindal Global Law School, having secured a scholarship by doing well in the entrance exam. As a Lawyer I joined the practice of law with a ring side view to the bar before joining the bench as was selected to be a Legal Researcher of an exceptional Judge who rose to become the Chief Justice of India Understanding the workings of his mind and the pressure that came with public office has broadened my horizons. Then I practiced law at a small but power packed law chamber where I prepared briefs for murder trials amongst many other diverse matters.
Thereafter, during Covid, I joined a software development company as a legal subject matter expert, and I loved it! While working from home I interacted with developers from IITs and saw & enabled creation of cutting-edge complex software used by multiple industries. This made me want to take a deeper dive in the AI space and see what can be done. I pivoted to becoming a product manager and then lead the teams building AI contract readers (still a novelty in 2023). Being in a small sized company and viewing it with the feeling of an owner, I was exposed to all possible challenges from HR, software development, managing clients as also compliances, budgeting and forecasting.
Then came an opportunity to do a Management Program at IIMA. Having just entered my 30s I thought that the mid-level Course would do. However here my years of rich & varied work experience propelled me to undertake the Senior Management Program (which has just concluded this month). Here I rubbed shoulders with cohort-members with an average age of 40-45 years, ladies & gentlemen who have made a mark in multi-industry, multi-products fields. This opened unknown vistas in a quick time and helped me imbibe the learnings from a distinguished Faculty.
The story does not end here. Midway through the SMP I began working as a Product Manager with a pioneering, leading Information Service Provider in the pharmaceutical industry. Here I can marry my expertise in law and AI. I can see the macro picture regarding the innovation and lifecycle of a drug via a regulatory and customer centric approach. Also, due to my interest in AI skills, I find myself helping my company with expansion into frontier products, data and systems.
The fun is now in riding the crest of the AI waves which are coming fast and furious… an animal which is changing the way humans live. I often find myself thinking that this is the first time in human history someone is able to do something like this. This gives me a tremendous sense of awe, zeal and determination.
My unconventional career is not one forced upon me or one of randomness, it is a deliberate exploration to maximize learning across domains, at the cost of short-term certainty. This ‘uncertainty’ could sometimes be nerve wrecking. However, the principle remains the same -I work on what holds my interest, do a deep dive and master the craft. Constantly learning and growing.
