Name: Maruthi Kashyap Gudipati
Track: Finance/ Risk
Studied: Management of Technology
Trainee year: 2020
Why did I apply for this track? Finance & Risk
Engineering to Finance – Why & How?
Why did you switch your career from Electrical Engineering to Finance? When did the love for Financial topics start? These have been the type of questions I have been asked by many people I know over the past year. From whatever I can recall, I have to go back to the time I was perhaps 4-5 years old. I was born in a family of finance where my father and my uncles are all financial experts in my home country India. Right from my childhood days, they helped me connect basic concepts of finance with everyday objects and real-life experiences. Such conversations with them always instilled a curiosity in me and through this curiosity, I was constantly encouraged to read more about financial issues. My first degree was in Electrical Engineering and then I went on to do my Master’s in Management of Technology at TU Delft. With my affinity towards numbers and strong critical reasoning skills, I was preparing my ground for a career in Finance right from my bachelor degree days.
Starting my professional career with Nationale Nederlanden (NN)
While pursuing my Master’s in Management of Technology at TU Delft, I had an amazing opportunity to attend one of the lunch lectures conducted by NN at the university. I was inspired by NN’s commitment to leverage technological innovation for the future of finance. There were about 4 executives from NN who had delivered the lecture. I vividly remember, there were so patient in answering all my questions. That’s when I thought for an ambitious starter like me NN would be the perfect place to learn and execute my innovative ideas.
It’s been about 6 months since I started my traineeship and I strongly feel the traineeship programme by NN is one of its kind. In comparison to the graduate programmes offered by companies, the degree of flexibility, a plethora of opportunities, a strong focus on personal development stand apart here. For instance, NN collaborates with one of the best institutes for personal development (De Baak) to enable every trainee in identifying his/her weak points and also explore their strengths in great detail. I have always felt such high emphasis on personal leadership enables future leaders (trainees) to be competent, skillful and solve problems from different perspectives.
Balancing Act – Work and Hobbies
We live in a world where stress is just becoming the boss of our heads. The primary idea of achieving a good work-life balance is to eliminate unnecessary stress from life. For me, the great stress buster has been playing cricket (a popular game in India). I have spent a better half of the last 2 decades of my life, falling more and more in love with the game of cricket. So much changed all around me over these 20 years, but the love for the game never went away. I’ve watched thousands of cricket matches on TV and played so much cricket right from the parking lot in my house to playing at a competitive level for a club in Delft. The great thing about working at NN is that you can tailor your role to your interests. Flexible work culture, open team environment and the flat organizational structure help me follow my passion and also work diligently.
“You Matter” has been NN’s motto from its inception. From my earliest associations with the company till today, I have related to this tagline every single day. My opinions did matter during every team meeting, my ideas did matter to the senior executives during brainstorming sessions, my learning goals always matter to my manager. Therefore, I strongly believe you definitely matter’s at Nationale Nederlanden.
In case any of you like this piece of writing and want to know more about NN and the graduate programme. Feel free to reach out to me :
LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/mkgudipati/
