Being known by right people is key to success: Mentorcloud CEO

The Hindu-Business Line organises a talk on ‘Accelerating your career success’

Ravishankar Gundlapalli, CEO of Mentor Cloud USA, addressing the talk on ‘Accelerating your carrer success ’, in Vijayawada on Monday. The programme was jointly organised by The Hindu-Business Line and State Bank of Hyderabad. PHOTO: V. Raju

Being known by the right people has become the key to success in this competitive world, said Ravishankar Gundlapalli, CEO and Founder of MentorCloud, a cloud-based platform that accelerates knowledge-sharing and mentorship in organisations.

Mr. Ravishankar, a Ph.D from the University of Michigan delivered The Hindu-Business Line on Campus Talk on “Accelerating your career success” organised in association with the State Bank of Hyderabad at the P.B. Siddhartha College of Arts and Science here on Monday.

He has been featured in Forbes India and Harward Business Review for his work and vision.

Talking to MBA and M.Com students Mr. Ravishankar said that two or three decades ago success depended on “what you know”. Students of the IITs, IISc and IIMs were successful, but later success depended on “who you know”, today success depends on “who knows you”. Being known by the right people is key for accelerating career success, he said.

“Success is achieved not received,” he said and gave a list of ingredients that would help students achieve and accelerate success in their careers. He said that there was no success without hardwork even if one was smart, connected or wealthy. Mr Ravisankar said that Knowledge of the self (K), action – doing things with knowledge (A), reflection – reviewing the results of the action ( R ), measuring the outcome (M) and awarding or acknowledging those who have helped in making achievements (A) were the ingredients needed for accelerating success. It was easy to remember these points with the acronym K-A-R-M-A, Mr. Ravisankar said.

He asked students to read former president Abdul Kallam’s Vision 2020 and Wings of Fire and donated 100 copies of the books to the college library.

Interaction session

State Bank of Hyderabad DGM K.G. Venkatesh Reddy detailed the programmes being taken up by the bank under the corporate social responsibility programme. He explained the importance of having a bank account and inculcating the saving habit.

The talk was followed by a very lively interaction session with students asking questions on subjects like –“Which should be given more importance—salary or satisfaction? The answer given by Mr. Ravishankar was that youngsters should take up jobs that help them develop their knowledge, skills and connections even if they were paid low and cited the example of a couple of classmates who joined Infosys though the company did not offer a fat salary.

Siddhartha MBA Programme Director Rajesh C.Jampala said mentoring was and art that required great deal of skill and lauded the achievements of Mr Ravishankar.