Financia 2018-19

Durgadevi Institute of Management Studies (DSIMS), under the umbrella of Rajasthani Sammelan Education Trust hosted its eighth edition of Annual Finance Conclave, ‘FINANCIA 2019’ on 8th, 9th and 10th of February 2019. The event was in association with Bombay Stock Exchange.

Each year the conclave carries a theme to help all the students to bridge the gap between the theory and the reality. This year the theme of the conclave was, ‘Paradigm Shift in the Financial Markets’. The themes help in understanding the current developments happening in the industry and build a career path according to the relevance and interest of a particular area in the finance industry. The event was held in three phases namely, Exciting Events, Conclave and the Conference. Team FinDS from DSIMS hosted all three events on behalf of the college. The three-fold conclave started with four exciting events for inter-college events. First was the flagship event of Financia, Mock Stock, which helps in experiencing a real time trading experience which started from 28th January 2018.

The Mock Stock was followed by a series of offline events in the DSIMS campus on 8th February 2019. The day started with a very startling event of Word Gamble. This event gave a lot of adrenaline rush to finish the puzzles and crosswords in stipulated time to succeed to the second round of Quiz. The Quiz was hellacious and kept the contestants on their toes. After a mentally simulating game, there came the time for the next most exciting event of the day, XL Ninja.

XL Ninja aimed at testing the Excel skills and having fun with the spreadsheets. There were three rounds to the game. It started with the MCQ round to gear up the contestants for the further rounds. The other rounds focused on decoding the excel data to find solutions to the situations placed before the contestants. The quests to win this game helped the contestants to up their spreadsheet skills and develop analytical skills. The afternoon was then charged up to host another brilliant event, Finopoly.

Finopoly was a financial market monopoly, where the team with the highest portfolio value at the end of the game would win the board game. This geared up the contestants to decide on their investment strategies to be able to draw the maximum value from the virtual market created in this game. There were a lot of surprise elements added to the game to have an authentic experience of the market. The day ended with a blast and happiness on each and everyone’s faces.

The exciting events were then followed by the most enriching Financia Conclave on 9th February 2019 in the afternoon slot. The occasion was in association with Bombay Stock Exchange and was graced by industry experts to elucidate on the theme of the conclave ‘Paradigm Shift in the Financial Markets.’ The conclave started by an introductory speech by the Associate Dean and HOD Finance of DSIMS, Dr. Sarita Vichore, who emphasized the importance of realizing the change and opportunities that are offered by the market because of the constant shift that is happening in the market. It was followed by an introduction to the theme by convener Financia, Dr. Nehal Joshipura who welcomed all the esteemed speakers and introduced the theme to everyone. She emphasized on the major changes that financial markets have experienced in the last decade and therefore the change in the expectation of each stakeholder has from the market. The occasion was graced by Mr. Amit Agarwal as our keynote speaker, who is the founder member of Edelweiss Stressed Asset Division. He has a rich experience of 17 years in the industry and has managed entire life cycles of investments and developed a lot of exit strategies. Team FinDs was also privileged to have Mr. R Kannan as a panelist who is the head of Corporate Performance Monitoring function at the Hinduja Group. He is also a member of FICCI, CII, Bombay Chamber of Commerce and other such committees and has profound knowledge and experience in global and Indian economic activities. The conclave was graced by Mr. Sanjay Bhandarkar who is an investment banker with over 25 years of experience in the industry. He has led Rothschild India for over 11 years and is also a prominent board member of Tata Power Ltd. Mr. Sadanand Shetty also marked his presence at the event. He has set up an advisory platform for family offices and has also been in the fund management role with Taurus Mutual Fund and Kotak Mutual Fund. The conclave was privileged to have Mr. Amit Mehra as its panelist. He is a Founding Principal at the Unicorn India Ventures, which manages investments in early and growth stage startups. Mr. Amit brought nuanced understandings on private investments and ways to scale up startups and raise institutional funding. The entire panel discussion was moderated by Mr. Manoj Alimchandani. He is a CA by profession and has deep insights about Banking and Valuations. He has worked with family offices and has had the benefit of interacting with the management of over 1000 companies in the last 25 years. The panel discussion brought in a lot of insights of how the financial markets have evolved and a shift that is happening now because of the technological changes and the changes in the expectations of various stakeholders involved in this market. Team FinDs extend gratitude to all the esteemed speakers, moderator and the Faculty Staff to make the conclave so insightful for all the students.

This year, Finance Conference was a new addition to a series of events that Team FinDS organizes under the umbrella of Finance Conclave. The Conference was graced by Ms. Brinda Jagirdar as a Chief Guest. She is a senior economist in the areas relating to the Indian Economy and financial intermediation. She retired as a GM and Chief Economist, SBI. She was associated with the Raghuram Rajan Committee on Financial Sector Reforms in India. She presented wonderful facts about the Indian economy and how financial intermediation plays a very important role in achieving the strategic goals of the economy. She stated the importance of financial markets and the evolution that has led India to be one of the fastest developing economies in the world.

Financia 2019 was a huge success. Treat Resort and Gelnova Labs were the Hospitality partners to this event. The esteemed guests, participants from various colleges, sponsors of the event, the faculty members of DSIMS, RSET administration staff, the student body all worked in tangent to make this event a huge success.