Leveraging his experience of working in the corporate sector for more than twenty years, Kalyanaraman Subramanian today is an Entrepreneur and Business Coach and is mentoring Gen-X and Gen-Y businesses to make huge strides.

Kalyanaraman hails from Kozhikode, Kerala. He completed his school and college education from there itself.

Talking about his childhood, Kalyanaraman shares that he was a very pampered kid. He did not really have to face any struggle growing up. He was an average student academically but was good in extracurricular activities at school. However, he says that he had to face struggle when he joined his first job.

Kalyanaraman started off his professional career with GD Group in Coimbatore. He worked with the company for about ten years. Later he worked with different companies in different countries.

Kalyanaraman shares that even after working for many years in the corporate sector, he could not get the desired promotion in his job as he didn’t have an MBA degree. Then he left his job and went to the UK to do his MBA. He says that studying in the UK was a life-changing experience for him. He realized that he should do something of his own. And he started his own Financial Consultancy firm in Kerala itself.

Talking of his struggles, Kalyanaraman shares that everything was going well until when the financial crisis of 2012 hit him adversely. And it rendered him bankrupt. However, not losing hope, he gathered himself again and was able to rebuild his business.

Kalyanaraman thinks that corporations need to let their employees make decisions to be able to grow and scale themselves. He thinks that an employee who makes decisions whether right or wrong is far better than an employee who just acts within the boundaries of instructions given to him. Besides, he says that companies should also have Key Performance Indicators to gauge their and their employees’ progress.

Talking about Covid, Kalyanaraman says that it was a blessing in disguise for him as during the pandemic only, he started narrating his stories based on his life experiences and also started sharing his business lessons online. He could connect with many people. Later, people started approaching him to mentor them in running their businesses. And today he is a full-fledged Business Coach mentoring Gen-X and Gen-Y businesses.

If he could go back in time via a Time Machine, Kalyanaraman would want to respect money and manage his finances in a better way.

In his spare time, Kalyanaraman loves to play and watch Football. Besides, he also likes to sing Carnatic Music and play the Violin.

Kalyanaraman advises parents that if their children have an entrepreneurial mindset and want to start their own business then instead of forcing them to take up a job, they should encourage them to go on their entrepreneurial journey.

To aspiring entrepreneurs, Kalyanaraman advises them to do thorough market research before entering a market as to whether what they want to do is feasible or not. Besides, he also advises them to find a co-founder for their business who possesses different skills than them in the early stages of starting up itself.