From scuba diving to essence of management

Making a splash

Abhilasha, a student of the prestigious Indian School of Business (ISB) here has nearly eight years of experience in garment retail industry. She holds a graduate diploma in fashion technology from NIFT, Bangalore. Abhilasha was born in Durgapur, West Bengal but later her family migrated to Bangalore.

Abhilasha took an intensive five-day scuba diving training in the Havelock Island in Andamans. “Apart from exploring the breathtaking beauty of the underwater life the biggest lesson learnt was that only when you let go of your fears you can discover beauty in your surroundings,” she says. Not the stereotypical management student, Abhilasha says that she was skeptical while applying to ISB, but her initial fears turned into joy when she found a place in the final list.

Last year, she set out to explore the underwater world at Sardinia Island in the Mediterranean. The cave dives there hold testimony to the immense natural beauty which is under grave environmental threat. During this visit she came up with the idea of making environment friendly T-shirts for the dive centre.

She even bagged a T-shirt project from the scuba diving centre in Andamans.

“I gained confidence in my ideas from positive feedbacks but realised I was lacking implementation skills and decided to upgrade my business knowledge. I felt an MBA could give me the knowledge to start a profitable business venture and this is where my want to study an MBA started,” she added.

Abhilasha wishes to specialise in marketing and strategy.