Tushar Jha, 31, from New Delhi, India, is a Tech enthusiast, with fair experience in Business, and Product Management. His tactics, work, career strategies have always reflected the keen interest he has in technology and related fields. Tushar pursued his likeness for technology & science and completed his undergraduate degree in Mechanical Engineering, from Manipal Institute of Technology. From an early age, he has been a man of skills and worked towards enhancing them, e.g. Tushar has a neat understanding of the IT sector, and to take his interest forwards he completed a course in IT Service Management, in the year 2016. He was actively involved in inter-college championships; cultural and technical events, and raised the bar of performance for his peers. As a youngster, he was also awarded the State Champion in swimming – showing how much he values physical fitness, and achieving the best in every field.
After completing his undergrad, Tushar worked as a Trainee and Associate Software Engineer, with Tata Motors and Accenture, respectively. During this time, he was trained and taught the professional aspects of being an engineer, how to implement certain ideas in a given situation, and work under strict deadlines. He assisted his seniors and managers in the designing and testing of critical parts of equipment, which further enhanced his execution skills. Tushar later did his further studies in Marketing – a post graduation diploma, from International Management Institute. The program mainly revolved around Corporate Relations and Placements. As a freshly graduated and full of aspiring new thoughts & ideas, he started working with Freshworks Inc. (formerly Freshdesk), as the Business Development Manager. M7
For over a year he gained experience in the North American business market (covering the East Coast & Canada), understanding the revenue generation in the continent, learning product customization, and preparing & delivering collaterals to various stakeholders, Tushar was promoted as the associate Regional Manager (North USA & Canada). With the success in his career, his responsibilities increased too. Tushar was responsible for preparing budgets and controlling finance coupled with strategic planning, forecasts & allocations to achieve the pre-determined targets. He was actively involved with the marketing team to develop and implement several innovative initiations and strategies to uplift the customer onboarding process.
Tushar was recognized consistently for acquiring new customers to the tune of new key accounts every month, thereby making a significant contribution, particularly for revenue generation. In March 2017, he was offered the position of Associate Product Manager (Holidays) at MakeMyTrip. The key highlights of his achievements during a tenure of over 3 years, has been: defined KPIs and prepared dashboards to improve overall biz. performance including sales effectiveness, prepared yearly sales plan in partnership with the sales team, and managed the entire Business Strategy and Operations line of business for the company. He spearheads projects to improve internal processes that impact the overall productivity and operating profit margins.
JOURNEY, CHALLENGES, and CHOICES
Working at MakeMyTrip was like a breakthrough for Tushar- the international industry experience, business strategy, and revenue generation – contributed to motivating him to get further education in the field. As a professional, managing time to pursue a challenging ambition can be quite daunting and comes with its setbacks. Tushar started preparing for GRE as he wished to continue his studies as a Master’s student. Scoring a competitive 329 in his first attempt, Tushar was confident to apply to the top Business Schools in the USA. Kellogg School of Business was his first choice, along with the Fuqua School of Business, and Ross Business School. After receiving the admission from Kellogg, it was time to prepare for the next step: the interview. Unfortunately, Tushar couldn’t make the final list after the interview session – his confidence was shaken and he decided to reappear for GRE. M7
With no significant improvement in the score, Tushar re-applied to Kellogg where his wife has already been admitted the previous year (2020). In 2021, catching up with the Early admit round only after 8 months of receiving the rejection from the same university (Kellogg) in the previous session’s Round II, was a highly challenging task. He redid his application by putting forth strong arguments in his essays; his cheerful, warm and friendly nature was enough to fulfil the personality criteria, he enlisted his achievements and setbacks in a new light to form an entirely fresh perspective – it was captivating and engaging for the admissions committee. With new hope and looking at the picture from different eyes, Tushar made it to the final list to be called for the personal interview, again.
Achieving this target, keeping the same GRE score as last year, battling Covid (he was infected in the year 2021), re-doing the entire application work, managing his profession alongside, was an incredible accomplishment. Though he did get struggled with one of the essay questions from Kellogg School of Business, ‘Is MBA required at this stage?’, he siled through it by focusing on the positives he gained from all the setbacks – rejection, covid-19, average GRE score, and doing well in his profession (so why MBA) – and presented his case with a cheerful note, succeeding in adding just the right amount of expected ingredients in his answer. Indeed, recreating a whole aspect of his profile once again within 8 months, while making it compelling to make the cut-off for the second time, is a noteworthy performance. M7
With diligent preparation and learning business tactics, Tushar cleared the interview and was 100% a Kellogg MBA student. He also received an outstanding MBA offer from Emory School of Business, but it is quite evident that Kellogg was his first choice. The prime reasons he chose Kellogg so rigorously, were, he wanted to continue in the tech department and needed a school that would hone his skills in that area while keeping the business aspect of the degree intact, and second, since his wife was already a student there, it would economically and emotionally benefit the two to be in the same place. Battling the closed doors of that one institution you have worked hard for, can be depressing and shatters one’s confidence. But standing firm in the face of it, adapting to better tactics to overcome the failure with the limited resources at hand, can be rewarding and heart fulfilling. With a whole new promising future ahead, Tushar veneers into this new adventure and hope to find new heights, preparing himself for all the upcoming obstacles and trials in his way. M7
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