As a person, I like to think myself as multi-dimensional.

In this essay, I will attempt to elaborate

multiple facets of my personality through some examples and along the way I will try to give a
snapshot of my core value and belief system.

Although I was born in the capital of Bangladesh, Dhaka, my life started in a suburban township
of Chandpur district in Bangladesh. At the age of six, we moved to Dhaka and I started to
experience life in a different way. The living standard of Dhaka was extremely expensive and my
father had to stay back at Chandpur because of his posting, as he was a physician in the public
sector. To support our living in the capital, my father started to practice medicine after hours,
beyond his office duties. We would spend only 2-3 days a month together. In Dhaka, my mother
toiled away rearing my sibling and I, spending most of her time for us. This taught me about the
sacrifices and compromises parents make for the betterment of their children. And precisely for
this reason, I vowed to work for the underprivileged from the best of my capacity to honor the
values that my parents instilled in me. I am a yearly sponsoring member of Avijatrik Foundation
which works to create sustainable livelihood to eradicate poverty of the marginal population of
Bangladesh. Besides being a sponsoring member, I work with them in different capacities during
events, awareness campaigns and donation drives. Also, I have attached myself as donor/member
with Bangladesh Thalassemia Foundation which mainly works for the treatment of young
thalassemia patients to give them the life full of potential and opportunity they deserve.

From the onset of my formal education, I was good at studies with an inclination towards
quantitative subjects. This set me up for constant success throughout my school and undergrad life
and enabled me to attend the best schools and colleges of Bangladesh. As a matter of fact, my
career choice to work in Finance was heavily influenced by my proficiency with numbers.
Although my quantitative score in GMAT was comparatively lower, I can assure that this is not a
true representation of my quantitative skills. I was juggling between a full time job and GMAT
preparation at the same time and I put priority on my professional responsibilities. This
compromised the amount of focus and time required to excel in the GMAT exam. At this point, I
want to bring light on the academic credentials of my undergrad degree, which, in my opinion, is
a better reflection of my academic competencies and quantitative skills. Overall, I had a very good
CGPA (3.64 on a scale of 4.00, among top ~10% of the intake) and I was very consistent in
quantitative courses (Finance, Statistics, Operations etc.) having B+ and above grades. On top
these, I would like to add that I had gone through extensive quantitative courses during my high
school days in topics like Calculus, Linear Algebra, Physics etc. I constantly scored the highest
grades in these courses, which laid the foundation of my undergrad and professional performance.
Working in financial planning for a significant portion of my career also has solidified my love for
use of quants and metrics for decision-making and strengthened my ways around numbers.

The underlying factor that facilitated my success in my professional life is my continuous

willingness to learn new things. Another thing that I learned from my parents is to work hard with
dedication. Even as I am working as the youngest ‘General Manager’ in the history of my current
organization, I do not let complacency distract me even for a moment. I put in a lot of effort to
acquaint myself with new skills, to consume knowledge from a wide array of sources. Constantly
honing my skills is a priority for me. I may not have started always as the best at whatever I did,
but I ensured that I improved consistently and emphasized that my learning curve became more
efficient. Apart from my core expertise area of Finance, I have spent time to build knowledge in
the data analytics arena. I have completed office assigned course in Python and Tableau and
currently doing courses relating to data science in different online platforms on my own volition.
Combining my financial planning expertise with my current curiosity in data science, I want to
bring a new dimension in the financial planning for the technology companies. As such, I have
designed my post MBA goals accordingly. In the office context, my colleagues, be it peer, senior
or junior, were my constant source of learning. Their hard work persistently inspired me to do
better each day. I believe my two ‘Outstanding’ ratings out of three in the last three years coupled
with multiple quarterly star performer awards and selection as a member of the talent pool and as
a successor for the position of vice president in the organization demonstrate my constant strive
for excellence.

My job requires an overabundance of day to day collaboration and innovative thinking between
me and my stakeholders but I will not outline my routine responsibilities, rather I would like to
shed some light on one event. Back in 2017, we participated in a product design competition
arranged by Axiata group in all of its operating companies in different countries. The competition
was named ‘Digital Jam’ and we had to come up with a digital product and make a video about it
within one day, all the while completing our regular tasks. With unanimous decision, I was named
the team leader. It took exceptional effort and constant idea sharing, feedback incorporating to
finish the product idea, its feature, specifications, and finally the video describing all this. I made
sure that we are constantly communicating with each other and giving each other constructive
feedbacks all the while keeping an eye on the time constraint. As I look back, I fondly remember
this day where our efforts were a melting pot of resolute innovative thinking with sheer
collaborative mindset. The result was that our team became first from Bangladesh and seventh
among all the operating companies, additionally being the youngest team in the top ten. We had
the opportunity to have two workshops in the APAC offices of Facebook and LinkedIn in
Singapore. The success of this competition laid the groundwork for Axiata group to employ
digitalization across the organization.

As I already mentioned, I have learnt a great deal from my colleagues from the beginning of my
career. When I first joined in my landing role in sales after completing the management trainee
rotation, I was faced with a challenge. I was given the responsibility of merging and managing two
sales territories which effectively made my portfolio one of the largest ones in the organization in
terms of sales volume, retailer shops, geographical area and human resources. At first this task
looked daunting from the perspective of a person who has just started his career. My supervisors
believed in me and I returned their expectation with a can-do attitude. I did not think this as a
burden and sliced my responsibilities into small tasks. I asked around all my experienced
colleagues and team mates, sought out their advice whenever I faced with trouble. I had to integrate
all the retailers of the previous territory into my territory within only 3-4 days. We categorized the
retailers into 4 priority buckets based on transaction and inventory. Then we followed the progress
through a dashboard, updated every 2 hours. Through our collaborative and systematic analytical
approach, we completed the task within 3 days. In the end not only was I able to complete the
merger and manage the newly formed territory but also I was successful in leading a 60-person
workforce with 3,000+ retailers to a 9% YoY sales growth.

I have always maintained that ‘Balance’ is key to keep one interested towards multiple aspects of
life and the virtues gained from these aspects intertwine to pave way for success at all facets of
life. While I have never taken eyes off my professional targets, I did not set aside many other things
that I am passionate for. To familiarize myself with the Bangladesh startup and investment scene
and to contribute in any way I can, I have joined Bangladesh Angels Network and have become
an investor in iFarmer Bangladesh. I always tried to give back to my community. I believe that
proper and complete education is the ultimate enabler of a developed nation and I joined Youth
Policy Forum to contribute in policy making, especially for the education sector.

Some other interests that aptly represent me are my penchant for reading books on analytics and
fiction. I am a fan of Middle Earth. I am a passionate traveler and I have travelled to 8 countries
so far, mostly in South Asia. I have immersed myself in the diverse cultures and made friends
along the way. My passion for travelling also serves my sheer enthusiasm in landscape
photography. I am a die-hard soccer and Manchester United fan and pride myself in calling an
amateur soccer player as well. I have deep-rooted interest in metal music and I am an amateur
guitarist and keyboardist.

Throughout my life I have tried to ingrain few things in my personality: Consistency & Continuous
Improvement, Willingness to Learn, Innovation, Analytical Mindset, Collaboration, Hardwork,
Dedication and Balance. My experiences in life have been the culmination of the learnings from
the people around me and my interactions with them. If given the opportunity, I hope to bring all
these aspect to HBS. I am looking forward to become a member of the HBS community to learn
from it and contribute towards it simultaneously.