The Hindu Business Line : Not just managing home finance

Her formula for success is short and simple: "Whatever you do, do it well and better than others." Meet Jyothi Prasad, up-and-coming financial management consultant and well known among investment firms. At her ninth-floor apartment in the posh Jagat Vidya building in Kala Nagar, East Bandra, Jyothi explains the nature of the two assignments that she is currently working on, one of which is Jeevan Pradhi Karan, a Maharashtra Government project, which aims at better water supply and sanitation facilities in rural Maharashtra. The well-known Swiss structural engineering firm, Gherzi, which is overseeing the project, has hired Jyothi to handle operations for it. The other assignment is with Larsen & Toubro for the creation of a special economic zone for the Uttar Pradesh Government.

Explaining her role in these projects, she says, "I work with inputs provided by several agencies. Besides helping to obtain funds and managing the finances to make the project viable, I take care of problems involving repayment of loans. The Yen loans looked good, but had major repayment problems".

These are her early days in financial consultancy, but Jyothi is enjoying the experience and the challenges. Her husband, Durga Prasad, is also in the same line of business, but the couple do not work together. "Since I am on my own, I organise myself better, enjoy more leisure hours. " And being on her own, totally self-sufficient and an "independent-minded" person is what Jyothi always aspired towards.

A Commerce post-graduate, at a time when `bright' students were expected to enrol into Science, Jyothi made a jumpstart into her career at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, where she did her MBA. "The IIM gave me a head-start, the tough, competitive environment helped to structure thinking towards solving problems," she says. But most of her experience was gleaned from SBI Caps where Jyothi spent six years. "The money was not all that good, but the experience was. In those days, we were given lots of responsibilities and had direct access to the Managing Director," she recalls.

Hong Kong-based Peregrine was the next stop after SBI Caps, with Jyothi heading the firm's Capital Market Division. When the firm closed down as a result of the South-East Asian crisis in 1998, she, along with some of her colleagues, helped set up the Anglo-French firm, Rothschild. In lot of ways, as she will tell you, Jyothi was the richer — in both experience and expertise. "With both these firms, I learnt a lot about the capital market and dealing with government bureaucracy," she says. And in March 2002, she decided to `go it alone'.

Just as she is diligent and committed to her field or work, Jyothi feels that marketing oneself aggressively to get assignments would "mean making compromises". On the other hand, she sees no shortage of work for people like her, although the days of issue management are over and the investment climate is different. She says, "Government projects will be on, and while I cannot compete with big consultancy firms, there will be enough work for the less expensive services."

She is a keen gardener and fitness freak, besides being an avid reader. On gender bias and whether she has had problems with her male colleagues, she says, "Not really. But then, I never expected any special treatment, working long hours like anyone else. You know you are accepted as `one of the boys', when your male colleagues begin using four-letter words in your presence. But there have been instances of bias and the unspoken feeling like, `what the hell she is doing here?' You just shrug your shoulders and carry on".

Picture by Shashi Ashiwal

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