For being an outstanding achiever in their professional career and honouring the credit brought back to the university due to their efforts, the Distinguished Alumni Award is conferred to someone who makes a mark in their respective field of work. This year, Shefali Joshi was nominated by her peers and chosen by a panel for her praiseworthy professional achievements as she worked diligently to earn the award from UFV at the Town and Gown ceremony.
Having been brought up in a family business ecosystem, Shefali refused to choose the sought-after conventional path of being an engineer, she knew she wanted to study the business side of things. “Back then, there were not a lot of colleges in India that were particularly handling international business graduation especially at the time when I completed my grade 12”.
“DJ Sandhu, one of the founding members of the India campus, actually spoke to our batch asking us why we were taking such a huge risk and opting for a program that was only setting its roots in India? He later went on to tell us how eventually this will open up a lot of doors in the near future.” Shefali adds
After graduating in the founding batch of UFV back in 2010, Shefali has now come out to be a successful professional who has truly used her international degree to its full potential.
Joshi had the opportunity to work and gather experience from various countries. Starting her career with the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce as a financial service representative for two years in Vancouver, she then decided to move back to India with her skills where she joined Green Corporate Gardens and worked as a Business Analyst.
Soon after, a very interesting opportunity came her way with the GVK group, the corporation behind Mumbai International Airport. Here, Shefali and her team helped create an alternate revenue generation scheme which was spread across eight phases and the team managed to generate a shade shy of 1100 crores for the company.
Having spent some time garnering experiences across regions and domains, Shefali pursued her MBA in Finance and Strategy from ISB. As someone who had been in a similar academic ecosystem before, she moved past the customary cultural shock and was prepped & ready. Her experience with applied learning pedagogy early on in her life with UFV positioned her to extract the most from her higher education journey.
While at ISB, she was also doing some research under a professor who had been associated with ISB since the very beginning. His area of research was the family business side of things and Shefali was fascinated by his work so she helped him write a few research papers that got published. The papers were references for MBA and general master’s level courses.
The professor was working on a book for the Edgar Elgar handbook. Shefali soon came on board and her primary role here was to understand how family businesses evolve and how succession is important to this model. Her prime focus was on Asian businesses because these societies usually give emphasis to family culture.
Shefali is currently working with JSW Energy where she raises money for any infrastructure projects they are working on and to finance long term projects. Shefali while working here has also helped to invest in various projects in the thermal sector.
From banks in Vancouver to small startups in Chandigarh, from working in real estate to finding alternate revenue streams in Mumbai, from drafting research papers to writing books, Shefali has a vastly rich experience which is constantly evolving.
“Over the years, I think it’s better to not treat everything as a competition. It’s okay to help and accept help in return. These relationships matter. It’s simple to be a nice person and be friends and have each other to depend on.”- Shefali Joshi, Distinguished Alumnus 2019, UFV.
