Guest Lecture by Ms. Anita Zutshi

The SIMSREE students witnessed a guest lecture by Ms. Anita Zutshi, GM Finance-Sales and Customer Development at Hindustan Unilever Limited. Ms. Zutshi talked about "Career in finance and FMCG sector".

Ms Zutshi talked about the industry expectations from MBA students. She stressed on hard work, along with thorough research and ability to get along with people. This is quite important for today's manager since he is expected to deal with different kinds of people in India or on a global level. Along with all these, a manager should also be able to put across his thoughts properly. She emphasised on the importance of training a Management Trainee has in his involvement particularly in the initial one year.

Ms. Zutshi also talked about the roles a career in finance has in this sector. She described various finance expertise roles like taxation, treasury, auditing, budgeting, etc. She mentioned a term "Business Partner" and said that a business partner is not just a consultant but is completely involved with the day-to-day functioning of a company, and making important business decisions. A finance business partner has roles in departments like purchase, manufacturing, distribution and marketing.

Along with academic skills, Ms. Zutshi also agreed about the importance that a manager has as a leader. His/her leadership skills are tested along the years as he/she moves up. This happens in local, then national and also global level. She said that at these levels, its the leadership more than the academic skills which acts as a differentiating factor. This is because the academic skills have already been tested and now the manager is expected to perform as a leader.

The guest lecture was an interactive session, with the students of the first year asking questions and Ms. Zutshi answering them all with equal prowess. We all,at SIMSREE thank her for sharing her thoughts with us and adding to our learning.