As part of our ongoing quest to get you meaningful and powerful stories from India and around the world, we invited yet another passionate entrepreneur – Additya Kashyap for an exclusive interview with BrilliantRead Media. He is a Business Leader, Coach, Mentor and the CEO of Majorel India. Let’s read more about his inspiring journey and his advice for our growing community!
Excerpts from our exclusive interview with Additya:
We are aware of your contribution to the ecosystem, talk us through your background and your journey as a leader, please;
I had a very humble beginning in 1995 as a Trainee with a monthly salary of Rs.2000. Straight out of college, I picked up my very first job through a newspaper advertisement; those days we didn’t have naukri.com or placement consultants.
I had only one belief – whatever I do, I will be the best in it, and you can only be the best by putting your best efforts and do your work with passion and grit. This commitment in every role that was given to me, made me what I am today.”
I kept learning new technologies and systems and ensured everyone around me knows it as well. All the teams that I have lead, has been the best in knowledge and performance. Now, I have more than 25 years of experience in Aviation, Banking & Financial Services, Healthcare & Insurance and Information Technology.
I have grown in ranks, managing operations of Fortune 100 companies for organizations like Daksh, Epicentre Technologies, Genpact, Aegis and now Majorel.
I always wanted to be a leader and I understood very early in my career that to become a leader, you need your team to work with you, not for you. I have been certified and specialised in Six Sigma, COPC, Business Development, Performance Management, Client Relations and Project Delivery.”
This has allowed me to train many team members to become experts in Information Technology, Healthcare, Banking & Finance and Customer Experience as I strongly believe in sharing my knowledge base and experiences for their individual growth and success.
Personally, I continue to involve myself in upskilling young leaders through leadership development training along with life coaching sessions.
You are always positive and motivated, what keeps you going?
The sheer fact that “Today” is a new day that gets me going. I love what I do, the idea of going to work and being able to make my presence count drives me. I am a self-motivated individual and constantly like being on the move to add as much as possible into that day, to evolve and challenge my comfort zone.
This makes me always open to learning which triggers a positive mind-set approach. I started to work for pocket money from a very young age, the joy and achievement of this hard-earned money instilled a fire within to make it on my own terms.
Responsibilities at a very young age pushed me towards sincerity and accountability which has helped me immensely through my professional life too. Seeing from where I started to my current environment has motivated me to reach newer heights and constantly evolve myself.”
How did you find your passion and purpose and started working with it?
As I told you having worked in different sectors and started to work at a very young age, the challenges which it brings in makes us more prone to being on our toes. The responsibilities, you can take it as a burden or that as your purpose, entirely depends upon the individual. I took it as the latter.
This purpose instilled my drive into never giving up. I have worked in different places at different roles still meeting new challenges in a day to day life, connecting with varied people understanding them. I like to lead by example rather than just with words, if my journey can push one person into believing in the positive changes they can bring into themselves makes me more focused on this being.
What gets you out of bed in the morning i.e. what’s your source of motivation?
I yearn to learn something new each day. To handle a challenge, a situation, understand the logic and to find a solution. This quest keeps me on the move and makes me look forward to something new each day.
How do you manage yourself and keep on going despite the challenges? What drives you?
As I said in the previous question, I look forward to new challenges and find learnings which increases my experience.
I always take the challenges head-on instead of being afraid of it. Also, I follow a strong practice to do the difficult task first.”
This helps me prioritize and makes the execution easier. See, till the time we are alive, we will face challenges and accepting that this is the way life is, makes every day worthy.
Please share with us what has worked well for you so far?
Being open to learning new technologies, understanding the new line of business, continuously enhancing my knowledge and skill-set – these are some of the key elements of my life. I have understood that we keep learning till the time we are alive.
In your opinion what are the keys to success?
Reading. I always keep a book handy whenever I am travelling or when find my space. I like to watch a lot of videos of inspirational leaders and speakers. So it’s all about me to learn as much possible for I believe the day we stop learning we stop living.
This focus to keep learning from all the channels that are available like events, conferences, books, videos, shows and working with great people it can be anything as it is important for continuously learning and enhancing self. Along with this what is very important for me is that I grow people within.
My effort is on growing leaders within the organization to equip them with a lot of what I have learnt over these years and keep learning which makes us as a team “Stronger Together”.
I like to write blogs, these are a few ways I try to find ways as to how to give back to society or to my team. So yes I am a life coach, I help people with issues they have in their life be it professional or personal and my blogs are also around that.
We would love to know your advice for all those starting out aspiring leaders?
Simply put, understanding the C.A.N.I. approach. Continuous And Never-ending Improvement.
BrilliantRead is committed to bringing stories from the startup ecosystem, stories that reshape our perspective, add value to our community and be a constant source of motivation not just for our community but also for the whole ecosystem of entrepreneurs and aspiring individuals.
Note: If you have a similar story to share with our audience and would like to be featured on our online magazine, then please write to us at [email protected], we will review your story and extend an invitation to feature if it is worth publishing.
