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10. Only the CEO can give the money pitch.
9. Check equipment or use your own projector and laptop.
8. Pace the presentation smoothly and evenly.
7. Don’t stroll or fidget around on the stage.
6. Don’t tell jokes. Ever.
5. Hand-outs are not your presentation.
4. Always use a remote control.
3. Don’t do a live demo of your product or service offering.
2. Don’t read your speech.
1. Never, ever look at the projector screen.
This is taken from a FT article by Andrew Hill titled “Inside McKinsey“.
The world’s most prestigious consultancy prides itself on its intellectual prowess and ethical standards. But this year, an insider trading scandal surrounding former McKinsey luminaries has left staff and alumni reeling.
When 1,200 partners of McKinsey&Company – the elite of global consulting – arrived at the Gaylord National Hotel & Convention Center, outside Washington DC, early on the morning of March 15 this year, they found themselves where they least wanted to be: at the centre of a media firestorm.
Up the east coast, in a Manhattan courtroom, an insider trading case was focusing attention on the links between key former employees of the world’s best-known, most prestigious, most self-consciously high-minded consulting firm and a corrupt hedge fund boss. For outsiders, intrigued by and suspicious of the McKinsey mystique, it was an irresistible combination. For partners, most of whom had flown into Washington from their offices around the globe for the scheduled annual meeting, it was a public embarrassment, a private outrage – and even a potential threat to the future of “the Firm”, as McKinseyites call their employer. “You can’t underestimate the shock, the disbelief and anger there,” recalls one McKinsey veteran. As Dominic Barton, the Firm’s personable global managing director, brought the opening plenary session to order, the older partners were “completely ashen-faced”, the same person recalls.
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This is from my live twitter feed from this presentation available on @moidtweets.
Presentations have to be KR(i)SP:
K – Knowledge
R – Respect
S – Skill
P – Preparation
What do investors look for?
Investors look for
1. Large and growing market
2. Scalable business model – start small but be replicable over time and profitable
3. Competitive advantage – what is built in to sustain the economics of the business model (e.g., IP, entry barriers)
4. External validation – someone else also needs to vouch for your business model and say it is a good idea
5. Reasonable valuation – risks in start-ups are so high that angels look for returns between 10x to 30x to get 25% IRR
6. Great people – neither the techie, UI designer, salesperson, or the biz/fin guy, but solely the entrepreneur – YOU.
Why are YOU standing there?
It’s important for investor to bet on the jockey and not the horse.
Characteristics of a desirable entrepreneur:
- Integrity
- Passion
- Experience (starting a business) (more…)
This is the English translation of the last sermon of Prophet Muhammad (May Peace Be Upon Him)… taken from Huda website.
This sermon was delivered on the Ninth day of Dhul-Hijjah, 10 A.H. (623AD) in the Uranah valley of Mount Arafat in Mecca. It was the occasion of annual rites of Hajj. It is also known as the Farewell Pilgrimage. After praising and thanking Allah the Prophet Muhammad (May the Peace be upon him) began with the words:
O People! Lend me an attentive ear, for I know not whether after this year I shall ever be amongst you again. Therefore, listen carefully to what I am saying and take these words to those who could not be present here today.
O People! Just as you regard this month, this day, this city as sacred, so regard the life and property of every Muslim a sacred trust. Return the goods entrusted to you to their rightful owners. Hurt no one so that no one may hurt you. Remember that you will indeed meet your Lord, and that he will indeed reckon your deeds.
Allah has forbidden you to take usury; therefore all interest obligations shall henceforth be waived. Your capital is yours to keep .You will neither inflict nor suffer any inequality. Allah has judged that there shall be no interest and that all interest due to Abbas Ibn ‘Aal-Muttalib be waived.
Every right arising out of homicide in pre-Islamic days is henceforth waived and the first such right that I waive is that arising from the murder of Rabiah ibn al-Harithiah.
Having been through the interview process with all the top-tier strategy consulting firms notably McKinsey, BCG, and Bain, I got into the role of advising my peers at Columbia Business School on preparing for such interviews.
Over the last few days, as I do these practice case interviews, I realized that it would be more efficient to create a standard checklist that I can then use to base my feedback on. While the checklist is more aligned with a particular case I have created to give a holistic feel, I think this can be relevant in a general context as well. And some of the tips could evoke a WTH! kinda response also but the idea is to be as comprehensive as possible to appeal to users at varying stages of interview preparation.
For the purpose of this post, I will use a specific case to make my guidelines easier to understand and implement.
Here goes the checklist…
1. Use blank white A4 papers in landscape mode
The idea behind this is that your work should mimic as if you’re working on a MS-Powerpoint deck.
2. Number your pages beforehand
Sometimes interviewers may notice it and regard you as being very structured.
3. Once the interviewer gives the case brief, recap key information to make sure you got everything correctly. In case of long case briefs, make sure you’re very crisp and succinct without relaying the complete brief verbatim to the interviewer.
Case brief given: Our client is Navigant Advisors, a retail brokerage firm doing $5Bn revenue in 2010. It has 200 branches in the U.S. of which 100 are corporate owned and the remaining 100 are franchised. We have been retained by this client to help them understand the economics of the business.
An illustrative recap would be: Navigant Advisors is a $5Bn retail brokerage firm looking to understand the economics of its business and has a 50-50 split for its 200 branches amongst corporate owned and franchised.
Adapted from an article by Prof. Joseph Stiglitz
The protest movement that began in Tunisia in January, subsequently spreading to Egypt and then to Spain, has now become global, with the protests engulfing Wall Street and cities across America. Globalization and modern technology now enable social movements to transcend borders as rapidly as ideas can. And social protest has found fertile ground everywhere: a sense that the “system” has failed and the conviction that even in a democracy, the electoral process will not set things right — at least not without strong pressure from the street.
Across all the protests visible in different part of the world, there is a common theme, expressed by the Occupy Wall Street movement in a simple phrase: “We are the 99 percent.” That slogan describes the enormous increase in inequality in the United States: one percent of the population controls more than 40 percent of the wealth and receives more than 20 percent of the income. And those in this rarefied stratum often are rewarded so richly not because they have contributed more to society — bonuses and bailouts neatly gutted that justification for inequality — but because they are, to put it bluntly, successful (and sometimes corrupt) rent-seekers.
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This is based on an excerpt from a session by Hess Corporation’s Chief Stategist.
Early 2011 overview:
- Long-term fundamentals in oil are robust; investing in 20- 30 year time frame; worried about long-run oil price (in 5+ years)
- Downstream: Large refinery in British Virgin islands – once people see uptick in margins, then people chase those margins. Only 1 in 7 years provide good margins! We are not going to make good money in the refining business for the next 5 years. Optimized 500,000 barrels a day to 250,000 barrels a day.
- Natural gas – more exciting hydrocarbon. This is an absolute game changer for the U.S. Today one of the top 4 resource holders in the world.
- Power generation: all incremental natural gas demand in the U.S. comes from the power sector. The largest and the fastest growing energy sector in the world
(more…)
This is a Forbes’ article written by Laurence J. Kotlikoff and Edward Leamer, professors of Economics at Boston University and UCLA.
Banking System We Can Trust
Turn all financial firms into mutual funds.
Before throwing more money at Wall Street, let’s understand what our financial system was supposed to deliver, what it did deliver and what price it charged.
The system was supposed to channel our hard-earned savings into the best real investments: new homes, offices, factories, equipment and research. And it was supposed to correctly price our assets.
It did neither. Instead, Wall Street morphed into a vast gambling enterprise, generating massive trades of existing securities without, in fact, raising the investment rate or growing the economy.
During the dot-com bubble, Wall Street funded all manner of silly businesses, and during the housing bubble, it put millions of people in homes they couldn’t afford. This “expertise,” which cost one-tenth of our output, was delivered by the best and brightest, with half of Harvard’s graduating classes becoming high-class croupiers.
As for pricing assets, the stock market’s been on a five-decade roller coaster, notwithstanding a relatively stable real economy. The market rose dramatically from 1950 through the mid-1960s. It then spent the next decade and a half falling through the floor. Then it rose like crazy in the late ’90s, crashed, soared and crashed again.
We need a financial sector but not one like this. Nor do we need Wall Street hitting us up for its gambling debts. What we need is Limited Purpose Banking (LPB), which would transform all financial corporations, including insurance companies and hedge funds, into mutual funds. They would, henceforth, be called banks.
Under this system, banks would never fail for a simple reason. They’d never hold any financial assets and they’d never borrow except to finance their mutual fund operations. Instead, they’d be limited to their legitimate purpose–financial intermediation. Under LPB, people, not companies, bear risk as their mutual funds do well or poorly.
A new Federal Financial Authority (FFA)–would rate, verify, supervise custody, disclose and clear all securities purchased, held and sold by LPB mutual funds. Private rating companies could stay in business, but no one would need to trust them ever again. (more…)
At the World Leaders Forum organized by Columbia University, Dr. Ahmad Mohamed Ali Al-Madani, President of Islamic Development Bank, shared insightful perspectives on the looming international financial crisis, the excessive reliance on debt as the achilles heel for the global financial order, and the way Islamic Finance can offer great ideas to completely overhaul the global financial system.
Five key principles that were defined as the cornerstone of a sound financial system are:
1. Increase share of equity and reduce share of debt in the total financing of economic activities
2. When the need of debt is justified, it should be extended on the basis of sound due dligence that includes logical risk-reward considerations
3. Credit should be confined primarily to transactions that are linked to the real sector to ensure that credit expansion moves more or less in tandem with the growth of the real economy
4. All financial institutions, not just banks, need to be properly regulated and supervised so that they remain healthy and do not become a source of systemic risk
5. Respite should be given to debtors who err in real distress beyond their control – the giving of respite in such circumstances along with necessary restructuring that Islamic Finance requires will help reduce risk of asset price reduction caused by forced liquidation/ acquisition of borrower’s assets
It is also important to note that the principles of Islamic Finance are not specific to the Islamic faith – they are part of all divine religions and also secular paradigms. The underlying principles of Islamic Finance have been described as ethical and universal.
This becomes all the more relevant in the current times as various forums (G20, IMF, World Bank, Central Banks, EU, etc.) are thinking about how to stop this financial contagion but are limited in their thinking to just merely making some tweaks in the existing order. Islamic Finance offers a radically different alternative that can mend this systemic epidemic. As the Economist noted, “the world needs new ways of thinking and the risk involved therein”, Islamic Finance offers basic principles for this very purpose.
Some western economists and finance experts have begun to understand the merits of the Islamic Finance system. A notable mention is the work done on “Limited-purpose banking” by Prof. Laurence Kotlikoff, Former Senior Economist on the President’s Council of Economic Advisors and currently an Economics Professor at Boston University. More on this subject in a separate post.
Continuing from the previous post….
I am sitting in my New York apartment eager to ride out Hurricane Irene. Everywhere in Manhattan, there seems to be utter panic. One supermarket had this displayed: “We have water available even now”.
Anyways, rewinding to where I left in my first recount, I completed my client study in Florida in the first week of August and then quickly started another client study the next week. On the side, I also observed fast it being the Islamic month of Ramadan. However, my stint was made easier with the client being closer home in New Jersey (15min drive from New York city). Client from a new industry (consumer goods), this was a short study but very high visibility… direct work with the senior client leadership (CEO and downwards) on a daily basis. This study gave me a great opportunity to work on my client communication and client relationship building skills.
On the personal front, had some great milestones (wife’s birthday and wedding anniversary) that rounded off with me finishing my internship on a high note…
Client satisfaction. Check.
Team appreciation. Check.
Study completion. Check.
Return job offer. Check.
So, now am back into the school mode with a great relief of not having any recruiting pressures. I feel that I can put a lot of emphasis on extending my learning in the second year and also build my skill set. Also, this gives me a huge opportunity to focus on things beyond academics and recruiting.
Zooming into the next 2 weeks before I start classes, have plans to stay home to celebrate Eid with family here in New York following which I will round off my summer with a short trip to Chicago to meet my brother and his family. And then back in action… after possibly the most memorable summer in a long time!!!!
Excerpt from my recount to for the Columbia email series – “What’s hot in cluster H?”
I just completed one year in New York and to sum it up, it’s been an exceptional experience for me with a lot of help from cluster H love.
I am writing this on my flight enroute to Palm Beach, Florida… amazing destination but only if one goes as a tourist. And fortunately or unfortunately, I go there for work (how good is that!) This summer has been great in more ways than one. In less than 24 hours after finishing our exams, I was off with Hina and Zoha to visit our families in Dubai and India. Both of us were a little scared about this trip since Zoha was doing her first travel trip and that too starting with a bang… a 13-hour non-stop flight. After a month-long vacation, I landed back in New York to start my internship. Wardrobe needed some revamping so in came our in-house shoe consultant, Mike, who was kind enough to not only give me tips but also accompany me to the store. Alongside other insightful things, one major lesson learnt was that both your feet don’t have to be of the same size. That explained why I always had two sizes in mind whenever I visited a shoe store earlier.
Past that, little did I know that McKinsey would package everything that consulting has to offer in my summer experience (why me?). Day 3 of my training, I am pulled out to be assigned to a project. As I am still settling to the idea of new industry, new client… I am asked to take the next flight to Florida for a client meeting. And so my tryst with Florida began… 6 weeks of Monday through Thursday travel, lots of air miles, hotel points, and eating out. Technically, I thought I was good at MS-Office… but this internship has shown how far away I’m from becoming “barely good”. Day starts and ends with powerpoint with a dose of excel thrown in the middle. As if travel wasn’t enough, work hours have also been equally intense (though not as bad as Manoj’s who gets to personally welcome the sunrise three days a week). Personal relationships are definitely under a lot of stress with this kind of work lifestyle but thankfully mine has held fort strong enough for us to be celebrating our third wedding anniversary tomorrow.
Moving onto the fun part, this summer experience also had some fun elements thrown in with weekend getaways to Montauk (loved the Hamptons area close by), Miami, and then Dana Point in California (had Levi & family also for cluster H company). More than anything, this part kept the significant other happy enough to open the doors for me at 6am on a Friday one week. Above all, the most exciting part is seeing Zoha grow up (though I don’t get to spend much time at home)… We are always running to catch up with the pace at which she outgrows all her stuff – clothes, rockers, play gyms et al. Most interesting experiences have been the mishaps I had while changing her diapers (details warrant an offline conversation).
Every country in this world started its evolution at a different point in time in history… But if we disregard the time scale and just look at the evolution steps, there is a strong sense of commonality. What countries like India are going through currently – a transition from agrarian to industrialization – is something Europe and America has gone through in their evolutionary history.
So, what does it mean for India? Transition and its associated turbulence, turmoil, and social churning is inevitable.
What can India do? Work to get over this transitional period as soon as possible with minimal damage.
And what is the media doing? Turning a Nelson’s eye to the harsh economic realities plauging the common populace while building their TRPs by sensationalizing glamor and superficial realms of life. Seems like the media is behaving like Marie Antoinette who had once said, “if people had no bread, they should eat cake”. These very TV channels focus on cricket, music, astrology, reality shows day in and day out showing the current establishment’s approach, “if you cannot give the people bread, give them the circus”. Or better, “if you cannot give the people bread, make them forget hunger by keeping them entertained”.
This is nothing but sheer escapism. Yet another addiction like alcohol and drugs. And to get out of this, it is important for the media to become more responsible. This will only happen (I am not really optimistic about this) when all these people in positions of influence focus on the real issues – which are basically economic – and not by trying to divert people’s attention to non-issues.
In the industry and among its employees, McKinsey & Company is known simply as “The Firm” – need we say more?With 82 offices and around 7,000 consultants worldwide, McKinsey serves more than two thirds of the Fortune 1000, or 85 of the world’s top 100 companies.
“The Firm” derives much of its mysterious prestige from its powerful five–part code of conduct. McKinsey employees put client interests ahead of firm interests, serve the client in a superior manner, adhere to high ethical standards, preserve the confidence of clients, and be ready to differ with client managers and tell them the truth, however painful. Over time, Martin Bower also began directing his recruiting efforts toward graduate students the firm could mold into broad–based consultants, instead of experts who had built up years of experience in a single industry. McKinsey & Company thus became the first consulting firm to hire directly from business schools. Another tradition set by Bower was a reticence to discuss financial matters openly, which persists to this day. Maintaining that the firm would make more money if it didn’t concern itself with profits, Bower never charged clients performance–based or results–based fees. Bower shaped McKinsey culture in other, more subtle ways. All executives were required to wear hats and long socks (to avoid displaying “raw flesh”) – though there may be more bare heads and bare skin on display these days, many McKinseyites still prefer long socks.
Source: Vault Career Library
In all this, let’s look at how “The Firm” describes itself:
We strive for world-shaping client impact
We work with leading organizations across the private, public and social sectors. Our scale, scope, and knowledge allow us to address problems that no one else can. We have deep functional and industry expertise as well as breadth of geographical reach. We are passionate about taking on immense challenges that matter to our clients and, often, to the world.
We work with our clients as we do with our colleagues. We build their capabilities and leadership skills at every level and every opportunity. We do this to help build internal support, get to real issues, and reach practical recommendations. We bring out the capabilities of clients to fully participate in the process and lead the ongoing work.
Source: McKinsey corporate website
FOOTNOTE:
Vault.Com announces top 50 most prestigious consulting firms for 2011 – McKinsey takes top spot for 9th straight year
Vault.com, the source of ratings, rankings and insight for the consulting industry, has released its annual Top 50 Consulting Prestige Rankings. For the ninth straight year, McKinsey & Company, regarded by consultants as “the gold standard,” has been ranked No. 1.
“McKinsey & Company cannot be beat in the prestige category,” said Brian Dalton, managing editor at Vault.com. “The firm has achieved a certain mystique that has gone unmatched since we began conducting our consulting survey, so much so that respondents go so far as to state that McKinsey has ‘invented the industry.’”
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As I write this, I just have 2 exams that separate me from the well-deserved (at least I think so) trip across the atlantic. Nonetheless, I am very happy for how this academic year has gone by… and as most of my graduating seniors vouch for, it is definitely not in glee that CBS students transition from the first year to second year. After all, half of the most amazing time I am going to have in years to come is reaching an end… and the next year is definitely going to be more valued than ever.
Columbia has really been a harbinger of all that I wished to achieve from this stint… whether it be related to career, professional development, social networking, or fun. Starting with the “out-of-the-world” orientation week whereby 9 senior students act as Peer Advisors for every cluster (a section with around 60-70 students) to basically get everyone on board… it went into hardcore academics with its own dose of fun.
First semester, I exempted out of a few courses (after all, had done some coursework while at IIM) to get a chance to take electives right away. Most of my peers say that I did the right thing by exempting out of courses like Strategy Formulation and Operations Management. Instead of that, I took two electives – Pricing & Revenue Optimization, and Strategy Consulting Skills. These courses turned out to be amazing useful in terms of arming myself with a practical toolkit. Taking electives with second year students has its own ups and downs… sometimes you find the senior so chilled out that you find the course discussions to be very collaborative and useful. The downside is that being amongst the handful of first years, you’re most often teamed up with seniors for assignments and you end up doing most of the homework.
Nonetheless, my major priority in the first semester was recruiting. I came to Columbia hoping to get into a top tier strategy consulting firm (a dream I cherished since the beginning of my career). So, most of my time went in hanging around CMC advisors and career coaches to polish my resume, my pitch. And for the rest of the time, I was busy trying to get some face time with alumni and recruiters from the target firms. Alongside all this, I was part of a few student organizations to hone my leadership skills and also get involved in something important at school. As if that wasn’t enough, I decided to put my consulting skills to test by taking up projects in the Small Business Consulting Program and the Pangea Advisory Program. While one was with a corporate client in New York, the other one was an international development project based in Congo. In all this crazy schedule, academics was also definitely on my radar so I did struggle to make sure I do well. At the end of the day, your credentials are what get you a foot in the door of every opportunity.
Come second term, I had successfully navigated the recruiting process… having landed internship offers from all the top tier strategy consulting firms. After lot of deliberations, I was stuck between BCG and McKinsey for my eventual decision… each of these firms made great efforts to help me understand the firm and also evaluate based on my personal decision criteria. In the end, it was a close call but I accepted the McKinsey offer since it seemed the right thing for me to do.
This milestone was a great beginning to the second semester… and then the same routine got back into action. Again I exempted out of another core class – Decision Models – since it was essentially a class teaching two tools – problem solver, crystal ball. Instead of that, I took up some more interesting electives – Economics of Strategic Behavior (ESB), and Economics of Healthcare and Pharmaceuticals. ESB is one of the most vied-after class at Columbia being taught by Prof. Bruce Greenwald, the “guru of wall street gurus”. Since I learnt that Prof. Greenwald is going to be on a sabbatical next year, this was my only chance to do this course so I ended up enrolling in his EMBA course. This did end up costing me 25% of my bid points that I have for the complete program. No regrets whatsoever!!!! Another advantage of taking this with EMBA was that… I had a light workload during the week with this course happening over weekends (that too alternate weekends). With internship lined up, this semester was more peaceful with me focusing more on parenting and other extra-curricular activities on campus.
Standing at the midpoint of this program, I find this investment of time and money to be really worth it… And lying ahead of me is this exciting internship at McKinsey followed by another two semesters of fun and learning.
For all those who are at the throes of deciding which business school to pursue an MBA at, my advice is two fold:
If you see your career as a positive sloping line, then the choice of school decides
- What your y-intercept is (better school means a better start to career)
- What the slope of your career is (better school means a faster career progression)
With that I rest my case… see you in the summer!
I had the privilege of taking a course with Prof. Bruce Greenwald, touted as the “guru of wall street gurus”. This was a course titled Economics of Strategic Behavior and concerned a strategic analysis of how a firm (already within an industry or trying to enter one) needs to assess the industry’s competitive advantage situation and accordingly work towards a strategy. This course is based on his best-selling book, “Competition Demystified”.
However, at the fag end of the course, Prof. Greenwald also touched on his most favorite topic, Value Investing, whereby he offered a glimpse of a unique value of corporate valuation. There are two value approaches to investing…
David Rose is a serial entrepreneur and angel investor known for mentoring young startup founder. Columbia had the privilege of getting tips straight from him last week. Here are his top 10 points:
10. Only the CEO can give the money pitch.
9. Check the media equipment or use your own.
8. Pace the presentation – general rule 1 slide per minute.
7. Don’t stroll or fidget. Command gravitas.
6. Don’t tell jokes.
5. Hands outs are not your presentation.
4. Always use a remote control. Go buy one, use it.
3. Don’t do a live demo, EVER. Things will go wrong.
2. Don’t read your speech. Looks like you don’t know what you’re talking about.
1. Never EVER look at the screen. That conveys: “I’m not important, the screen is.”
Adapted from Felicia Zhang’s blog
P1: As I study more about the US economy here @ school, I have lost my respect for US economy esp. its financial services industry. It’s so ultra-capitalist working towards bridging the rich-poor divide… with zero actual economic value addition
P2: Isn’t that everywhere? And it doesn’t help that no one is regulating them. I mean, if you were allowed to do anything you wanted with people’s money, anything at all with no consequences, what holds you back?
P1: yea… but if you look at it, everything in US economy either starts with the financial markets or ends with it. Financial markets are purely wealth redistributors and not wealth creators.
P2: Yes and no. Remember, the financial industry was relatively small until around the early 80s or so. Wall street movie, milken, junk bonds etc. Before then there was a healthy dose of regulation; Reagan and then Thatcher deregulate.
P1: True. More than just a big hand — GATT/WTO, changes in banking regulations, computerization all this stuff that starts in the 70s and 80s literally creates the possibility for the financial industry to take off. I find the financial instruments they created so weird and zero economic value adding.
P2: The weird instruments are a byproduct of no regulation. Think about India — they didn’t get hit hard at all, esp. the banks as the RBI governor said, “you must be capitalized…”
P1: As I study more… the root of everything in financial services seems to be just one thing – INTEREST RATES. Every penny moves in this industry because of something to do with interest rates.
P2: Hmmm. But how does that figure with the crazy derivatives etc?
(more…)
Over the last one month, I have been a spectator to all that’s been happening around the world. I neither see myself politically knowledgeable enough to take sides nor do I want to get into the rhetorical debates about this… However, there are some thoughts and questions that creep into my mind when it comes to global affairs.
There is no single international agency that can investigate any intra- or inter-country issue and direct resolution measures. Unfortunately, we all thought UN might be playing that role for us but they have ended up being absolutely toothless when they saw their patrons involved in issues they are meant to solve. How can “International Law” be successful, applicable or universal when its main focus is just to keep select nations in power?
While everyone admits the global economy is shifting its balance into different hands… and everything around us is in a state of flux, why do we see that the group of global elites is still constant? I don’t advocate decision making bodies like the G7, UNSC et al… since I would prefer every country to have its say in global affairs irrespective of how small or how poor it is.
I have always dislike (abhorred) hypocrites in every walk of my life… Who doesn’t? However, what worries me more is when this disease has spread beyond individuals to the state… whereby governments have turned hypocrite and no longer are working in fairness. What we witness today is everyone working selfishly for their own agendas… and selectively adopting rules as per convenience.
The time has come for the gifted intellectuals in the society to come up with fresh thinking on how they can cleanse the society and build a rational, practical and fair system of international affairs where:
- All states and people therein are treated at the same level
- Transparency in dealings (individual and institutional) is established
- Inter-state deliberations are all aligned to a single goal of common good for the complete populace
- Interactions are based on pillars of trust, honesty, and objectivity
- Clear distinction is made between what is a fundamental right for people and what is a privilege
This should percolate into every aspect of the economy… be it banking, healthcare, public services, employment, family and living.
It is 23:45hrs on December 31, 2010 and I am sitting at home writing what seems to be one of the most happening years in my life…
The most defining developments for me have been the decision on business school, the economy after the 2008-09 crisis, the employed to unemployed transition, the big move from Dubai to New York including my first trans-atlantic flight, the experience of a major snow blizzard in New York, the new friends I have made @ CBS and most of all, the anticipated wait for impending parenthood. The common thread in all these developments have been the progression in life… towards a more meaningful existence.
If I zoom out my thought lens and look beyond just the year 2010 to the whole decade (2001-2010), life has been nothing short of being “unpredictable”. So, what I hope to see for myself in the next 10 years is… a devoted and thoughtful family man (in the roles of a spouse, a parent, a son, and a brother), a committed and successful business leader (doing something I am passionate about), and a dependable and trustworthy friends to the numerous gems I have had a chance to cross paths with.
At the same time, I hope to explore more of the world that I have come to know in the past few years… Europe and South America are on my radar for the coming year. And possibly, more travel within North America.
With these thoughts I sign off 2010… hoping to continue my writing in the coming year with more rigor and thought!!!! 
PS: Image courtesy www.adweek.com
