Guest Lecture and Student Interaction session with Mr V Raja, President And MD, TE Connectivity
The CXO Leadership Lecture Series was one of the foremost events of the academic year 2014-2015 at TAPMI and was also the most awaited. Even before the event took off, the students were lucky to get to interact with Mr. V Raja, President and Managing Director at TE Connectivity, who was here for the inauguration of the lecture series.
Mr. Raja briefed the students about his experience of about 35 years in diverse industries- leather, F&B, Healthcare, Automotive tires and a few others, which he summarized as the 3B’s- Batteries, Bulbs and Blades.
The lecture started with Mr Raja telling us about himself in term of his background and then with keeping the floor open for questions to increase the interaction. At every step he mentioned how he didn’t have a great or a glamorous story as he believes that the only way to success is ‘Hard work’ but with each sentence he spoke, he continues to inspire students more and more.
The talk ranged from ethical practices at work place to knowing your industry better. At workplaces people often keep to their work roles and neglect the very product or service they are working for. Mr. Raja called it the brinjal syndrome, “If you don’t like brinjal, even if you are hungry you won’t relish it” he insisted on creating an appetite for brinjal (the least popular work) one can do complete justice to his growth and learning and in return to his job. Mr Raja’s Brinjal was ‘Audit’ and he faced it and since he could so can the rest.
A fact well known to all but realized by few is that the only factor that gets one ahead from the rest is hard work. We often become complacent at our work places and become complacent. We curb our growth and our learning, in turn making way for others to get ahead while we sit and watch. This depth of the fact was rightly understood after the interactive session. The students were truly inspired when Mr. Raja could also do the pricing for his leather shoes even today after his stint in the leather industry years ago- that was the level of detail he went into for his job.
The session was very insightful as the students could feel the very energy in the tonality and content of the conversation. It might sound clichéd but truly Mr Raja did instil in the students a desire to get ahead, a desire to push themselves to always give their best and a need to never compromise on quality and service.