It’s that time in my life, where the 10th year reunion of the business school I graduated from is just round the corner. Since I have now become an expert digger, I found a final copy of my essays lurking inside a zipped file. It is interesting that the grand plans that we build for ourselves, sometimes come true..
Here is the first essay the motivation behind my application to business school. It is dated and it is old, but I hope still relevant. Don’t laugh too much or kill yourself rolling on the floor… (That includes you too Frank)
Money?
It all started with a remote controlled model airplane, three lovely months in Bombay, and a one rupee note.
First the model airplane. It was and still is an expensive item for a 12 year old belonging to a Pakistani middle class family. Fifteen years ago the cost was 2,500 rupees (100 dollars), a big amount for my family. The only way that I could get my hands on it was by working. Although I worked summers whenever I could, somehow I never managed to put together the magic number.
Bombay was another story. Three years later it was a different world. (Both my parents are from Bombay so we visited the city on a regular basis, budgets permitting.) Although model airplanes still held my fancy, I had discovered people. Mainly my maternal cousins. I had spent my childhood fighting with them over petty issues, but at 15 things had finally changed. I guess we discovered companionship. We shared the same interests, listened to the same songs, read the same books and watched the same movies. After trying to kill each other for the past 10 years, we ended up as inseparable friends in that eventful summer. When the time finally came to fly back to Pakistan it was very difficult. Difficult because the magic number was back again. The 2,500 rupee (80 dollars) air ticket meant “one trip, alternate years”.
It was natural for a 15 year old to assume that money would solve all problems. If you could get a good job with good money you could fly to Bombay whenever you wanted to, and there would be no limit on the number of model airplanes you could buy. One of my cousins had just returned from two years stay in the US. She introduced me to the big name universities, with big name MBA’s making big money. “50,000 US$ a year,” she said. So I dreamt of going to Harvard or Stanford (the only big names she knew at that time) for an MBA and coming back to Pakistan loaded with dollars.
But then the one rupee note came along. One of our high school Math teacher had an interesting habit. Every once in a while he would walk into the class, put a problem on the board and offer a reward of a million dollars for solving the problem. Where the million dollars would be a Pakistani nickel, dime or quarter. “It will definitely be worth a million after my death” was his logic. One day he walked in and offered a billion dollars, a whole rupee note. I was the third student in line. The first two were wrong. I had done everything right, except for overlooking one small detail in the last line. It cost me a billion dollars.
The teacher’s name was Azizullah (meaning one whom God loves) and he made me love numbers. By the time I came out of high school I was only interested in a career in one of the following. Math’s, Organic Chemistry, or Physics, in that order. Money was important but an MBA was out. That’s how I ended up as an Actuary with a Bachelors in Computer Science. An Actuary because I never wanted to lose a billion dollars again, and a computer scientist because I had finally found my remote controlled F-15.
Six years later when I finished my undergraduate degree I had four job offers. A stock brokerage house, An actuarial consultant, IBM, and a local representative of Arthur Andersen. I chose Arthur Andersen. Mainly because it would let me play with the two professions in my life at that time. As I later found out it also gave me the exposure I wanted and the freedom I needed. I had a lot of fun, but I also had responsibilities. I even learnt a lot. I learnt about consulting, about client service, about people and managing them, about organizations, about software development, about finance and accounting, and surprisingly, about values.
A fringe benefit of consulting is the number of job offers that you receive from your clients. Mine are mostly insurance companies and software houses. The offers were not very frequent but whenever they came they always came with good money. However as I finally realized there is more to a job than just money. (It is ironic that I am saying this, a person who started off with money as a prime motivation.)
For me it is important that I have the freedom to work according to my values and my belief system. It is important that my advice is considered and I am in a position to influence the direction my employer is taking. It is important to me that the employer appreciates my way of doing things. Whether it is managing people, projects or deadlines, or pricing and negotiating contracts, or handling clients. It is also important for me to believe in what my employer is doing. Consulting allowed me to do all of the above. It also offered me the shortest path to ownership. None of the other job offers did.
Future Plans.
I am now at a stage in life where the appeal of starting my own company, and being my own boss is tremendous. And yes I have felt this appeal. However, since I come from a risk averse, middle class background and a third world country, the decision is not so simple.
“So you have your own setup, then what?”
“What is next, what will you do?”
“How will you make money?”
“Will you be able to run things on your own?”
“Will you be able to pay your bills?”
“Will you be successful?”
“How will you feed your family?” and
“What if you fail?”
One thing is clear. I am planning to work for myself. What will I do? Throughout my career technology has been a driving force and I have made my money by forecasting change. So Technology and Change, it will be. To be more specific my actuarial specialization is in financial markets and instruments. My experience is in software development and project management. And my formal education is in computer science. Financial markets combine all of my strengths. They are very dynamic (read: change). Hordes of new instruments every six month, requiring software, systems, and solutions (read: technology). The market for services is huge. Ten to fifteen international regional financial centers, thousands of associated firms. And only one language — money.
What will be my edge? There are already a number of companies focusing on this market segment. How will I differentiate? Low Costs! For the past three years I have worked as part of a team in developing a software exports division from scratch in Pakistan. Such a setup uses relatively cheap IT resources in the home country to do outsourced contracts from countries where the same resources are more expensive. A job, that may cost a million dollars in the West, can be done successfully for a fraction of that amount in such a setup. The returns are high but so are the risks.
Then what is the problem? It is a bit embarrassing to admit (especially after all that I have just said), but I have a problem with cashflows. I am scared of them. I am afraid of the last four questions. “Will I be able to pay my bills?”, “Will I be successful?” , “How will I feed my family?” And “What if I fail?”. (Yes I understand money, how it moves, where it comes from and where it goes. But can I generate some on my own and can I hang on to it).
Although my education and experience cover a lot of ground but there are some big gaps. For instance
- My total international work experience is around 2 years. I have worked with international clients on a regular basis but, do I have enough background to operate a global firm?
- I have managed teams of 10 and more people, but will I be able to manage a fast growing firm in a high risk market?
- I understand finance and accounts, but will I be able to keep my receivables in control?
- I have managed and delivered projects on small and medium scales, but will I be able to replicate this success on a larger scale?
I also need
- A much stronger understanding of financial markets and financial instruments. It is one thing to take a course and pass an exam, it is another to make a system that would be used by professionals in another continent.
- A better understanding of organizations so that whatever I build is sustainable. I have lost teams in the past and do not want to lose any more in the future.
- A more objective understanding of people at an international level so that I can manage them as clients, employees and contractors.
I am an Actuary. I understand insurance and I understand risk. MBA is my insurance policy. I understand that it is not a guarantee against failure. But at least it reduces the risk of failure to an acceptable degree.
