Stay in the industry, deepen your knowledge: Kaushik’s EMBA story

For some candidates, doing an MBA is an opportunity to switch industry or explore a new profession. Not so for EMBA’20 student Kaushik Janakiraman. After spending most of his career in food, nutrition, and supplements, he decided that the part-time Executive MBA at RSM would help him to deepen his understanding of the industry, he says is deeply connected to his personal mission.

“At RB, we produce a range of well-known purpose-led brands that aim to make people’s live healthier and cleaner, such as Dettol, Strepsils, ENFA, Finish and many others. In my current position as Head of Global Regulatory Policy for Nutrition, I collaborate with experts, governmental bodies, policy makers and other stakeholders to ensure that that regulation and policies are addressing the needs of population.”

Healthy nutrition

RB’s mission hits home for him, he says. Growing up in India, Janakiraman was confronted with unequal access to healthy nutrition from an early age: “I have witnessed many children growing up in adverse conditions and always believed that people deserve better. I feel that in my current position, I get the opportunity on a daily basis to directly make an impact and improve lives.”

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Global trends

“Covid-19 unfortunately illustrated the importance of regulatory policy for people’s quality of life. We produce the very well-known sanitizer Dettol, but also nutritional products and supplements that supports healthy growth and development. When global movement was restricted, access to solutions that promote nutrition, health and wellbeing can get limited. We worked with a wide range of stakeholders to align with the objectives of international organizations such as the United Nations bodies to ensure access was not disrupted during the pandemic.”

“To effectively develop and implement regulatory policy, I discovered you need to be able to analyse global trends and see the connection between different subject matters, to stay ahead of the curve. In a few ways, doing the EMBA helped me knowing where to look and what to look for and get better at what I do.”

Diversity in EMBA

“First of all, the abundance of case studies in all courses exposes you to many solutions to business problems in all fields. I for one, never expected that Finance and Economics would be so applicable to my field, but the finance courses have really shown me new angles and have made decision-making in my job more definitive.”

“Also, coming to an EMBA you will believe you are informed and bring some experience to the table, but your EMBA classmates will show you there is always a new insight and different perspective to a problem. They always bring their own cultural and professional backgrounds and specific industry knowledge to lectures. You can read about this type of diversity, but you really have to experience it to grasp the benefits.”

Sustainability

“Going through the EMBA, which has a strong focus on sustainability, has also helped to find my ‘sweet spot’ in work and life: having a challenging job I am passionate about, while delivering value to society. The choice to do a part-time Executive MBA while staying in the workplace helped me to find that sweet spot and make career progress even before graduation.”