Ride On Technology Wave To Lead Business

Interview With Ashish Chauhan.

- Vinayshil Gautam

VG: You have an image of a successful, result oriented and charming professional. Many who have heard of you have shown an interest in knowing of your social and professional grooming and journey through your educational and family life to get you where you are. Could you briefly cover the key elements, thereof?

AC: When I look back, there have been several influences. Coming from a small town of India is one of them. I was brought up in Ahmedabad. The city had a milieu of high unemployment in 1970s and perpetual draughts interspersed with social movements and riots. This was a unique background for any child to grow up in. Gujarat was very religious and that rubbed off on me too. As an individual, I have always thought of life as something to be lived for others. Studying in Gujarati medium school till class 12 was another major influence. While helping to focus, it reduced choices of what one could read. It continued as a factor even after my joining IIT-B. Learning English along with problem solving and managing people proved a major challenge. Computer programming and understanding of real time high speed data capture from the field was also an interesting aspect of learning at IIT which helped me set up IT and Networks for NSE later on. Studying at IIM -C created comfort in finance and working with IDBI set the career in finance.