Variety is the spice of learning

Question: What new skills have you acquired based on your experience with the pandemic and lockdown?

The pandemic would be a wasted opportunity if people didn’t take advantage of the adversity to learn something new. From the responses, it is clear that none of our 16 participants wasted this opportunity. Here is what each of them has learnt – some focused on personal learning, some focused on professional learning, and others focused on organizational learning.

ABHILASH BALAN, CISO at Digit Insurance

The pandemic and the lockdown which followed forced us to stay confined in our home, but it also helped us get more time to adapt and learn new skills. During the lockdown, I picked up skills like cloud security aspects and global trends in risk management that would help me stay afloat while working in this domain.

ANIL PINAPALA, CEO at Vivifi India Finance

Having played sports all my life, the pandemic induced lockdown made me pick up yoga along with my wife. Reading & playing sports and yoga has greatly helped me in keeping fit during this time and helped me overcome mental and physical stress.

AVNEESH TRIVEDI, CRO at Moneyboxx Finance

The pandemic and lockdown have reflected 2 important facets of human behavior - resilience and upskilling. Adoption of online learning tools has really been a very enriching experience. In these times, I have upgraded myself on 2 fronts - functional knowledge and behavioral knowledge. Considering it as a black swan event, insights about changed consumer behavior can be observed in these times.

BIKASH CHOUDHARY, Appointed Actuary & Chief Risk Officer at Future Generali India Life Insurance

The pandemic has amped up risk management, forcing executives and employees to adapt to remote work, learn new technologies and find different ways to serve clients and customers. Covid has helped more people than before understand that a single root cause issue can totally trigger risk at an enterprise level that affects everything.

Here are the key methodologies and skills that I adopt when it comes to risk management: (i) Put our employees first (ii) Understand technology, digital adoption and risks associated with it. (iii) Challenge the basics (iv) Identify emerging risks & (v) Develop strategies to respond, monitor and communicate risks.

BIRANCHI MISHRA, Head – Credit, Risk & Product at Netafim Agricultural Financing Agency

If the pandemic has taught us anything, it is that events in far-off corners of the globe can have massive repercussions on our traditional risk management plan. Irrespective of the size or geography, it is critical to evaluate the risks seemingly outside our scope that could impact our business and to what extent.

One of the skills that we are trying to acquire focuses on categorizing and quantifying risk in terms of its interconnection

and the sequential impact. It helps us to develop a comprehensive risk management plan for all associated risks. The key is being flexible, looking at emerging risks from multiple angles, and have proactive mitigation plans in place.

DAMODARAN C, Vice President & Chief Risk Officer at Federal Bank

Adaption to the WFH environment was the most important learning across the organization, induced by the prolonged lockdowns and associated restrictions. With more than one year through the pandemic, managing teamwork through virtual meeting platforms and fully digital means of communication has become the order of the day. Remote working and virtual meetings without affecting productivity and compromising on security are the key institutional skills acquired during the pandemic. WFH also led to more disciplined organization and systematic handling of functions.

Pandemic exposed Business Continuity Management to an unchartered territory, with no parallel in recent history. It necessitated quick realignment of BCP strategies and out of the box responses across the organization. Experience gained in conducting meetings involving employees from different locations through virtual mode in the normal times proved handy for the organization to smoothly migrate fully to digital communication platforms. Our digital capabilities increased manifold during the pandemic. The bank has put to use its digital capabilities in all spheres of business – be it customer interaction, digital banking services and online products, induction and training of staff, upskilling of staff by providing digitized learning experience and internal / external certifications, marketing, risk management, monitoring and control functions, business analytics etc. Now the organization is more agile and can respond and adapt to changes with more confidence.

GOPAL BALACHANDRAN, CFO & Chief Risk Officer at ICICI Lombard General Insurance

This is a situation which has not been experienced ever before and with new situations and there comes the need to build new skills and new work-related abilities.

Being the Chief Financial Officer and Chief Risk Officer of the company, I would like to focus on a few key skills/areas from a finance perspective and the endeavour would be to focus on leveraging and suitably applying the skills to enhance the contribution of the finance and accounts functions of the organization.

(i) Honing skills in Technology: The workforce has to be more technology savvy in terms of being able to navigate through tough situations and get the work done utilizing the various systems and other tools available on technology driven platforms. Utilizing paper is a thing of the past and must be forgotten!!

(ii) Cross Functional Interdependencies and System Flow: As the finance function has significant inter-dependencies on other functions across an organization, every function would have to look at being more technology savvy. Data has to flow seamlessly into the financial accounting systems from various revenue and expense booking systems and to ensure the same, the data flow management needs to be looked into along with appropriate integration of various technology-based platforms. If the various legs of revenue and expenditure booking have manual elements involved in them, the same would have to be transformed to being managed through the technology systems, to ensure that the finance function gets accurate and timely data required for finalization of accounts and other activities.

(iii) Information Security: In a remote working environment, information security is very important. Therefore, the work forces of the finance function, which are in the possession of Unpublished Price Sensitive Information (UPSI) would have to be knowledgeable on information security aspects.

(iv) Use of Analytics as Levers to Detect Outliers: The finance functions deal with large quantum of data. Therefore, they would be more knowledgeable in the use of analytics which can help them detect outliers and verify the accuracy of the outliers in terms of assessing false positives or false negatives. The same would go a long way in ensuring that the accounts give a true and fair view.

(v) Blockchain Technology: Where transactions are being undertaken with parties outside the organization, there is a need for ensuring smooth flow of information as well as the transfer of authentic information, including assessing whether the right counterparty is receiving the accurate information with the required levels of confidentiality. Blockchain technology could go on to play a big role to enable this. I would like to particularly lay emphasis on a critical soft skills aspect, which has gained prominence in the WFH operating model. Building relationships on the fundamental of empathy and navigating between cross functional teams with stakeholders at all levels, is extremely crucial for achieving long term success. Amongst other aspects, the WFH model has laid focus on being sensitive to needs of fellow colleagues, helping them during these tough times in all possible ways and above all, lending an ear patiently to their concerns and endeavouring to resolve them at all points in time.

As time passes, situations and functions are expected to evolve, and all-in-all I am fairly positive that the finance function will stand the test of time and continue being a business partner to

their organizations.

K R MOHANACHANDRAN, Chief Risk Officer at ESAF Small Finance Bank

Pandemic risk management has been a topic of academic interest so far. But it has now become a reality. Concepts and plans in pandemic risk were not tested earlier. Like any other risk, pandemic

risk has also become a reality and that itself is a big learning. The pandemic environment has offered many more real time experiences upfront with fewer hours for mitigating and managing the same. All processes of life have undergone testing and changing. A new lifestyle pattern and uncertainties in the front made risk management yet more dynamic, essential and meaningful. The most important skill that one might have acquired during the pandemic is to dispassionately deal with uncertainty.

PRITHVI CHANDRASEKHAR, President Risk & Analytics at InCred

Personally, the most important new skill I’ve acquired is compartmentalization. Previously, I could get into a certain persona or mind-set at work and switch back into a different more relaxed persona on my commute home. With WFH, that no longer happens. I’ve had to learn to switch between different mindsets, or modes of functioning, even while I’m in the same space. Mindfulness or yoga practice has helped me manage this critical switch.

RAKESH BANSAL, Chief Risk Officer at Hero Housing Finance

Some of the industries were badly impacted during covid period, and we were overly cautious during lockdown in those segments. I started interaction through video discussions with the customers. I became more tech savvy and started team meetings through Zoom calls and Google Meets and saved travelling and telecom costs.

ROOPAM ASTHANA, CEO & WTD, Liberty General Insurance

Some of the skills that have become highlighted in the current situation are agility and ability to thrive in an increasingly uncertain world, living in and being effective in a phygital world, digitally connecting with people at large (includes employees & customers), being open to change and increased focus on governance and risk management.

SADAF SAYEED, CEO at Muthoot Microfin

As an organization, in the new hybrid mode of operations, we are looking for candidates who are self-driven and possess remote management skills. The preferred s ki l l s e t would include coaching and counselling, interpersonal and problem solving, communication skills, coordination/ collaboration and related computer skills. Consistent with the current scenario, we believe that ‘resilience’ is the new competency we have seen among our employees. They gave their 100% and were quick to learn and proved their flexibility to adhere to changing business scenarios.

SUJAY DAS, Chief Risk Officer at MoneyTap

Since I have had an interest in cooking, this additional time on my hands has given me the opportunity to brush up on my skills, and also learn how to make many new dishes. I have also been fascinated to learn the history of how many different Indian cuisine dishes have been prepared with details of procuring the original ingredients for authenticity, which I try and recreate as best as I can. So, I make sure I am doing the research that is necessary for this.

Photography has also been a good hobby and since I like the science behind the photo-editing, it has given me another reason to enjoy research this subject all the mechanisms behind the scenes

of taking a photo and editing it.

SUNDER NATARAJAN, Chief Compliance & Risk Officer at IndiaFirst Life Insurance

Getting camera savvy, shedding ego to seek help from Gen Z and tight calendar management.

VENKATA JAYARAMAN M., Chief Risk Officer at Fincare Small Finance Bank

My approach here was 2 pronged – first to strengthen emotional resilience. In today’s context, more than ever, when one must deal with multi-level challenges, emotional quotient is imperative to managing self, family, teams and extended family of team members. The second is keeping abreast of the developments in cybersecurity domain not just in banking but across, through webinars and e-learning has been a productive use of time as well.

VIJAYALAKSHMI NATARAJAN, Chief Compliance and Risk Officer at Aviva India

At a personal level, enhanced mental strength and emotional strength are the value adds in the current situation of prolonged lockdown. From the organization’s point of view, we have learnt to value each other. We work remotely but even more efficiently with optimum utilization of available resources. Time management with balancing between work and home with reduced support system is key. We have to become more empathetic with our fellow colleagues, peers and teams. Also, it is important to appreciate what we have on hand rather than what we do not have. Nature has taught us unforgettable lessons for life.

SUMMARY

Clearly, none of them let the opportunity go waste. What the variety shows is that there is an amazing number of ways to look at a situation and respond accordingly. That in itself is a powerful risk management capability that mankind is blessed with.