Coming from a small village, Abhijeet was successful in setting out his name in big cities in terms of business and education.

Abhijeet Deshmukh hails from a small village in Maharashtra. He is currently working as a Brand Operations Manager(India) at ElasticRun. An IIMU graduate, Abhijeet has done his Bachelors and Masters in Physics and has more than three years of experience in the FMCG sector. He started his journey with a retail brand Keya where he managed the distribution of products in five Indian states of Jammu & Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Punjab and Uttarakhand. Later he got posted to his home state Maharashtra, however, eventually he started getting bored of his job. This is when he decided to switch his job and took up an opportunity with Varun Beverages, a PepsiCo franchise.

Abhijeet shares that he considers three factors to make a decision regarding a job switch-whether he enjoys his job or not; if he is being recognized for his efforts and lastly the compensation. In his career journey, Abhijeet has learnt core sales management, connected with people and also faced cultural differences in business scenarios.

Sharing his biggest achievement, Abhijeet says that he feels happy to have inspired and guided a small chunk of people pursuing CAT from his village. On failures, he shares that not being able to score well in his 12th standard has been a setback in terms of getting to a good engineering college. Further, he says that his failures have taught him to self-introspect and treat everyone with respect. Abhijeet feels that he had become arrogant and his failures taught him to stay grounded and treat people as humans and not as categories.

Discussing the Indian education system, Abhijeet feels that brands do matter and taglines do justify one’s worth in terms of opportunities and a bright future. Studying in one of the IIMs, he feels that the brand name has set him apart from other management institutions and introduced him to brilliant minds. He urges the present generation not to get influenced by school dropouts who have made it big in life but to consider completing basic graduation since the Indian system works on certifications and eligibility criteria. Abhijeet shares that the primary personality traits one should possess are having knowledge of the way people operate, having multiple personalities as per the situation and exhibiting good communication skills.

Abhijeet has a keen interest in poetry, reading, writing and travelling places. He shares that travelling has taught him to look at people with multiple lenses. He believes that if one carries more baggage, then they cannot travel far, similarly, in life, we should not carry grudges and emotions. Lastly, he says that travelling teaches one to be agile and flexible.

Abhijeet draws inspiration from his uncle since he took care of him and his family upon his father’s demise for fourteen years without losing his patience and temper. He learnt the art of satisfying multiple stakeholders in an institution from his uncle.

If Abhijeet could go back in a time machine, he would like to relive his hostel life when education and food used to be free of cost and he was surrounded by good people. Throughout his career journey, he has learnt that knowing the fact that one has struggled more than others, makes one value themselves and in the process learn how to value others as well.