Destiny In The Making

Part -1

Vikram and Keerthana met each at the most unexpected time of their life. Vikram returned back from US, having a successful career doesn't mean anything to him if his parents aren't happy, so he returned back to be with his parents and found an executive position at a reputed firm in Chennai.

Keerthana was an overachiever who joined the same firm two years back, being an overachiever she never fit into the social norms and always had her individual opinions that make her stand apart from her peers. She never got bogged down by titles and always stood for what was right. This sure was seen as threat among peers where everyone was being the puppet of their manager, here she is cutting those threads to stand on her feet and making a point every single time. Coming from a humble lower middle class family, being a first generation graduate, was an achievement to be proud of, but she wanted to achieve more, so she dreamt about doing masters from US and started preparing for it and saved for initial expenses, in 5 months she was leaving India for her studies. 5 months is all she had to deal with this circle of people who never understood her.

Having worked in US for almost 10 years, Vikram's mindset was completely different than what a normal Indian manager could comprehend. He talks about equality among peers, employee engagement and satisfaction. Giving the autonomy to team members to bring out their best potential. This sure was new to the team and he was revered among the leadership community to bring some positive change. Within 3 months as executive, the leadership was confident to hand him over the Senior Executive position where Keerthana's team was included under his wings to nurture and manage. He was given a brief about every team member about their work ethic, what they have worked and their achievements. Vikram always likes to have one-on-one meeting with his resources to have first hand information of their potential, their needs and what they are willing to learn and move forward, so he was having such one-on-one meeting with every member and it was Keerthana's turn to meet him.

"keerthana, next Neenga dhane?, He seems really nice, never met anyone like him, very humble and good listener, which no other manager of ours do it", one of her team asked and conveyed his thought about their new Senior Executive.

"Ya, its me next. Oh really let me see, hope I say the same as you so do", she smiled. One thing keerthana understood long before was never form an opinion about someone through other's opinion.

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"Sit down Ms. Keerthana, its very glad to meet you, I am Vikram, your new Senior Executive, sure your manager would have mentioned about me to you", Vikram stood up when she entered the room and with firm handshake, they both settled down.

An executive standing up when someone working UNDER them is walking in?? This was refreshing for Keerthana, as his predecessors, never done that, even current manager to whom she directly reports have never done that, let alone her manager's manager exhibiting such gesture.

"Yeah, I got to know about you, also its impressive, what you have done in your previous US firm in San Francisco , I would really like to know about it when time permits to talk in detail", Keerthana spoke in an assertive manner.

Assertiveness? Vikram met close to 10 people today and none was close to assertive, let alone they talk about his work after researching about him and learn. Vikram really had a good impression on Keerthana.

"Our CVP gave me a brief about every team member, so you must be that girl who is planning to leave the team to go to US for studies", Vikram was looking into his notes paper and casually made the sentence.

keerthana, hasnt shared this information to anyone in her team and CVP knew as she wanted a letter of recommendation from him for her college application which he obliged to give though he wasn't happy about her leaving and missing a potential resource.