NAIMAS hold first post-covid in-person Thought Leadership Series and AGM

On September 16, Network of AIM Alumni Singapore (NAIMAS) held its first post Covid in-person talk as part of their Thought Leadership Series and an Annual General Meeting. Members of the Singapore alumni chapter who attended the event at The American Club Singapore were able to network amongst themselves.

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Ice Breaker: Human Bingo

Saurabh Anand, Vice President for Events and Alumni Outreach, introduced an ice breaker game called Human Bingo. All members had to find alumni who met conditions in the bingo sheet. The winners who did this in the shortest possible time (8 minutes) were Manish Arneja (MBA 2004) and Anuj Goel (MBA 2010).

 

 

 

Annual General Meeting

After the Human Bingo, NAIMAS’ first annual general meeting, chaired by NAIMAS Secretary Sridhar Ramaswamy, began with a welcome address from the alumni chapter’s Chairman Dr. Clive Lim (MBM 1986).

In his speech, he welcomed NAIMAS members and requested them to register on their website www.naimas.sg and review their constitution. He also reinforced their commitment to strengthen the image of AIM amongst the business community in Singapore.

Dr. Lim congratulated the NAIMAS events team lead by Saurabh on developing and implementing a “NAIMAS Thought Leadership Series“ event platform. He then emphasized they need to work as a community to provide members with career development opportunities.

He also reminded members of their duty to be compliant with the Singapore Societies Act.

He ended by stating that he will be retiring as Chairman and welcomed Renny Yeo as the new Chairman. Dr. Lim thanked the members for giving him the opportunity to lead the Singapore alumni chapter.

NAIMAS President Vivek Goyal also addressed the members of the alumni chapter. In his speech, he requested members to help strengthen the community and network of volunteers, and to continuously build the association.

Vivek highlighted the successful launch of the Thought Leadership Series events, bringing together subject matter experts across a diverse range of topics. A total of 10 events were held since the formation of NAIMAS. He emphasized the importance of quality over quantity and thanked several members who helped in making the initiative possible, including Saurabh Anand, Meghna Kohli, Sangram Singh, Japnit Singh, Christine Ivy, and Kush Sagar.

He also expressed his gratitude to AIM President and Dean Jikyeong Kang and Alumni Relations Office Executive Managing Director Bernie Jiao for their strong support of NAIMAS, particularly in planning, implementing, and promoting NAIMAS events.

Vivek then thanked Mrinmoy Das for his contribution in registering the association, drafting the constitution, and setting up the website.

He expressed that a robust governance structure, diversity of committee and members, and succession planning is critical to successfully run the association. He assured the members that NAIMAS will continue to work towards leadership transition and committee diversity in 2022/2023. He also requested for volunteers to step forward to help manage the website and job portal.

He ended by thanking members and the committee for their contribution in running the association.

After Vivek’s speech, Sridhar confirmed that the AGM had met the quorum and proceeded in voting for resolutions. First on the list was the election of committee members. He walked through the current executive committee namely:

• Dr Clive Lim, Chairman
• Renny Yeo, Vice Chairman
• Vivek Goyal, President
• Sridhar Ramaswamy, Secretary
• Jun Palanca, Treasurer

He then nominated the following to act as executive committee members for the next two-year term:

• Renny Yeo, Chairman
• Vice Chairman position vacant
• Vivek Goyal, President
• Sridhar Ramaswamy, Secretary
• Francis Michael Puno, Treasurer

He then proceeded to put this to vote, the new committee was voted in after unanimous approval via a show of hands (no one abstaining and 100 % voting in favor)

Two committee members have resigned – Rahul Bhasin (moved to Dubai) and Aditi Asthana stepped down due to work commitments. The current Executive Committee and Committee composition will be announced in October / November 2022.

We are delighted to welcome Dr Ahmad Magad to the committee as Vice President Partnerships in place of Francis Puno who has been appointed Treasurer.

Sridhar thanked Clive and Jun for their participation and welcomed Renny Yeo and Francis Puno to their new roles.

Here are the other matters voted on by the members of NAIMAS:

• Record and approve the financial statements of the association prepared by the Treasurer, Jun Palanca, and audited by two honorary auditors who are members of NAIMAS
  • The accounts were unanimously approved via a 100% show of hands.
• Membership fees and other dues
  • The members deliberated the proposed membership fee structure and concluded that:
    1. A maximum of SGD 100 per member per annum as membership fees
    2. Collect up to SGD 500 per member in lifetime membership fees
    3. Collect up to SGD 100 per member (attending) per event towards cost of events
  • The executive committee and committee will decide what level of membership fees are appropriate within the above-mentioned band. The secretary asked members to vote on this resolution which was passed with a 100% show of hands.

The secretary then brought the AGM to a close an thanked the members for participating.

Saurabh Anand, Vice President, Events and Alumni Outreach, gave an update on the events organized by NAIMAS. He Introduced and thanked the team that has been working behind the scenes on all events organized by NAIMAS which includes Christine Ivy Narayan, Japnit Singh, Vivek Goyal, Sridhar Ramaswamy and Bernardino Jiao.

He highlighted the role of the Alumni Relations Office (ARO) team in Manila and its Executive Managing Director Bernie Jiao. They have been extremely supportive of NAIMAS events and have helped with the webinars, event flyers, design of collateral etc. They also commended the ARO team for promptly responding to requests and have created collateral even on an urgent basis.

Saurabh also shared the outcome of the NAIMAS Events Survey conducted in 2021. There were 68 respondents, and the key points were the following:

• Top 3 activities that members would be interested in attending:

1. 1. Talks by external experts (83.8%)
   2. Sharing by NAIMAS members (60.3%)
   3. Career and Business Networking (55.9%)

• Top 2 topics that members would be interested in:

1. 1. Investing ideas (76.5%)
   2. Business / Career opportunities (55.9%)

• Interest groups that members would be interested in joining:

• • Investing ideas (75%)
  • Others included Sports, Business / Career, Health and Wellness, Community volunteering.

• 6% of the respondents were willing to share knowledge / expertise with the NAIMAS members

He shared about some of the in-person activities that were conducted within the COVID restrictions which included 1) Tennis with Jun, 2) East Coast Cycling with Japnit and Sridhar, 3) Bar crawl with Rashish, 4) NAIMAS ladies’ meetup over coffee and snacks.

Saurabh also introduced a new initiative – NAIMAS Interest Groups – to get more members involved and lead activities for members. He gave the example of cycling which could be led by Japnit. The Interest Group Leader will manage the activities and decide the parameters. Interested members could sign up. He also mentioned that even if 12 alumni just did one activity in a year, they could have an alumni activity every month. They circulated a sign-up sheet for members to indicate what activities they would be interested in and whether they would be willing to lead the activity as well.

He also recognized the senior-most alumnus present in the room – visiting alumnus Mr. Dinesh Kumar Srivastava who graduated from AIM in 1978. He was visiting along with NAIMAS members – his daughter, Priyanka Ranade (MBA 2006) and son-in-law, Parag Ranade (MBA 2005).

After bringing the AGM to a close, Japnit Singh introduced the keynote speaker for the day, Prashant Bhayani, who presented his outlook for the global markets in 2022.

Prashant Bayani Keynote Address

NAIMAS invited Prashant Bhayani, Chief Investment Officer, BNP Paribas Wealth Management, Asia Pacific. Prashant joined BNP in 2016 from J P Morgan Private Bank where he was a senior investment specialist. He has held senior positions and worked in global financial institutions, including Goldman Sachs & Chase Manhattan Bank. He has 24 years of experience across asset classes including foreign exchange, equity, fixed income & alternatives having worked in Asia, the United Kingdom, & the United States. Prashant received a BA from Northwestern University and an MBA from INSEAD.

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Prashant addressed 50 NAIMAS members present on the Global outlook for 2022 – focusing on inflation, which he believes is likely to slow after peaking in 2022. He also discussed how the Fed will continue to raise rates to bring inflation under control. He then proceeded to provide his thoughts on the likelihood of the global economy heading into a recession on a one-year timeline and placed a 40/50% chance of that happening. He said that growth is slowing sharply in key regions – globally.

Prashant then focused on where one should invest during a slowdown and brought up the prospects of investing in US Investment Grade bonds, indicating that there are reasonable investment alternatives in fixed income. He felt that the U.S Dollar usually peaks after the Fed starts hiking rates and believes that equities require a defensive strategy.

He ended his presentation by elaborating on a new theme: Security is the new watchword, with a focus on energy & food independence, cybersecurity & defense spending, reshoring of supply chains, ESG and believes that interest rates could remain high for a long period of time.

There was a robust Q&A session that followed, which was moderated by NAIMAS President Vivek Goyal.

A LinkedIn post on the event appears below: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6983724910514761729/

 

For more photos, please go to the following link: https://bit.ly/photos16sep

 

We would like to congratulate NAIMAS for a successful event!