The ATK experience..!! Awesome!!
It all started on 5th October 2010... the ATK kick-off day. AT Kearney is a management consulting firm with strong ties to Cranfield. Becky Drinkwater briefed us about the A T Kearney Global Prize competition and its various steps. After an hour of presentation, we were all anxious to form our teams...the only rule: diversity!!
So, there we were in the forum searching for our prospective team members. After asking around, we finally made our team of four: Mark Grenfell-Shaw with has 25 years of experience across a wide range of sea-going engineering and strategic roles in the UK’s submarine force, Khanh Dinh with 11 years of experience in information technology consulting, Ilan Pragaspathy with 11 years of experience in North America working for both small and blue-chip companies and Prachi Khare with has 5 years of experience in Corporate Banking with expertise in business development, financial modelling, risk analysis, corporate and structured finance, debt syndication and loan documentation.
Of the 24 Cranfield teams that took part in the competition 10 cleared the first round and we were one of them. Result date: 8th October 2010. Time to get the case and start working on it. Spent about a week trying to understand the case and forming questions to ask the team of senior officials during the simulation round which was on 15th Oct. 15th Oct was a great experience when we simulated a consulting case. Case submission day was near... good amount of work. Thankfully we had Ilan, our power point expert who did lots of work on the slides and they looked just perfect. Based on the submission, three teams were seleceted... 4x4 was one of them. The first reaction...more work? Oh no.. :( But slowly the reaction changed... we are in top 3..wow!!!
8th November..the D-day for the presentaion. We were all set, choreagraphy done, practices done, rules of the game: don't turn your back towards the judges, talk confidently, YOU are the consultant, tell them what they should do, and most imprtantly do not look at the slides. OK... so there we were. Once there, the choreography went hay-wire but thankfully the other things went fine. After the presentations there was a nail-biting time of about half an hour when we prayed... God let us be second, we don't want to come first and work more. The result announcement started with some briefings about each team. What we did well, we should have done well etc etc. Then came the announcements..third is ___, second is ___ and hey..that means we are first. The 'congratulations' started before we heard our names and it was unbelievable! I was shivering...not because of the cold but because I was so thrilled. I could not believe we did it!!
Now, though it looked like a hectic task to do this earlier, I am so glad that we did it. It has been such a great experience. And frankly, the more we have come along, the more we have nderstood what consultanc is all about! Looking forward to the European round on 19th November...and whether we win or lose.. this journey is worth a mention!! :)
It all started on 5th October 2010... the ATK kick-off day. AT Kearney is a management consulting firm with strong ties to Cranfield. Becky Drinkwater briefed us about the A T Kearney Global Prize competition and its various steps. After an hour of presentation, we were all anxious to form our teams...the only rule: diversity!!
So, there we were in the forum searching for our prospective team members. After asking around, we finally made our team of four: Mark Grenfell-Shaw with has 25 years of experience across a wide range of sea-going engineering and strategic roles in the UK’s submarine force, Khanh Dinh with 11 years of experience in information technology consulting, Ilan Pragaspathy with 11 years of experience in North America working for both small and blue-chip companies and Prachi Khare with has 5 years of experience in Corporate Banking with expertise in business development, financial modelling, risk analysis, corporate and structured finance, debt syndication and loan documentation.
Of the 24 Cranfield teams that took part in the competition 10 cleared the first round and we were one of them. Result date: 8th October 2010. Time to get the case and start working on it. Spent about a week trying to understand the case and forming questions to ask the team of senior officials during the simulation round which was on 15th Oct. 15th Oct was a great experience when we simulated a consulting case. Case submission day was near... good amount of work. Thankfully we had Ilan, our power point expert who did lots of work on the slides and they looked just perfect. Based on the submission, three teams were seleceted... 4x4 was one of them. The first reaction...more work? Oh no.. :( But slowly the reaction changed... we are in top 3..wow!!!
8th November..the D-day for the presentaion. We were all set, choreagraphy done, practices done, rules of the game: don't turn your back towards the judges, talk confidently, YOU are the consultant, tell them what they should do, and most imprtantly do not look at the slides. OK... so there we were. Once there, the choreography went hay-wire but thankfully the other things went fine. After the presentations there was a nail-biting time of about half an hour when we prayed... God let us be second, we don't want to come first and work more. The result announcement started with some briefings about each team. What we did well, we should have done well etc etc. Then came the announcements..third is ___, second is ___ and hey..that means we are first. The 'congratulations' started before we heard our names and it was unbelievable! I was shivering...not because of the cold but because I was so thrilled. I could not believe we did it!!
Now, though it looked like a hectic task to do this earlier, I am so glad that we did it. It has been such a great experience. And frankly, the more we have come along, the more we have nderstood what consultanc is all about! Looking forward to the European round on 19th November...and whether we win or lose.. this journey is worth a mention!! :)
Wow Prachi.. this is great! Congratulations once again. You have mentioned the whole of your ATK experience so well. I feel really proud to call you my best friend.
ReplyDeleteCongratulations to your teammates too..Mark Grenfell-Shaw, Khanh Dinh and Ilan Pragaspathy. You all have made the teamwork a success!
I wish you all "All the Best" for the European round on 19th November.
You shared this in such an intriguing manner, I had goosebumps and had to take a break before I sat down to write a comment.
ReplyDeleteThese experiences and the network you have made and will make in the near future will be a building block for the amazing things to come..
To those achievements which I can see on the horizon.... Cheers !
Yes, you were right in more ways than one that whether you won or lost, the journey was worth a mention. Am not saying so coz when I type this out, I know the outcome. Its a victory for your team and you that you people made it so far. Winning the ATK would have been great, coming close to winning is more memorable.
ReplyDeleteAll the best for other accomplishments ahead.