A journey of Resilience, Vigor, and Optimism
By Prashant Roy Sharma (lovingly known as Salt-n-Pepper PRS)
“Sounds like a really exciting place to work” was the buzz in campus corridors, sports ground, and classrooms after Asish and Bhuvan had left after delivering one of the best Pre-Placement Talks ever at my campus — FMS, University of Delhi.
10 months later, reading through an article on Yourstory by Mocho, I realized how colleagues from FMS at OfBusiness were excelling in their challenging yet exciting roles, pushing the envelope and hitting the ground daily braving a burning sun, dust-filled air, sudden downpour, and patchy roads. Clearly something I was missing in a text-book corporate job at a sought-after Investment Bank I had joined straight after campus. By sheer luck, a few weeks later, Mocho connected me to Ruchi and Asish and after a couple of phone calls, I was part of the same exciting ecosystem and my journey of being an “OFBian” had formally started.
Since that day, “SMEs, Leverage, Profitability, Equity, DashBoards, MIS, Structures, IRRs” have become my daily life buzz words. If I have to describe what defines my journey at OfBusiness, it would definitely be Professional Learning, Belongingness, and Growth. In some ways, I feel lucky and honored to have come across this opportunity to work along with a fantastic, passionate, and motivated peer set and an army of homegrown cross-functional leaders. The last 24 months have been crazy for financial services especially with the entire NBFC sector facing back to back liquidity headwinds from the collapse of IL&FS and subsequent liquidity crisis at DHFL, Reliance Capital, Yes Bank fiasco and now COVID-19. Having closely watched this roller coaster of frequent ups and downs and now leading the charge to raise capital in these turbulent times has been challenging yet extremely satisfying for me personally and has shaped my professional growth and learning curve.
Our fight for capital has been nothing short of spectacular. Today when most NBFCs of our size have 12–15 lenders on their balance sheet, we have 37 lenders who have cumulatively written an INR 1400 Crs+ cheque to us and truly believe that OfBusiness is a special brand which is truly destined to greatness. We have been the youngest NBFC in India to get listed on
stock exchanges, we were the fastest to raise money against Commercial Papers (CP), one of the earliest to sign debt from foreign lenders in the form of an External Commercial Borrowing (ECB) and definitely the most frugal (even a Marwari will vouch for it).
When I look back now, I feel like having come a long way. I have been tutored by some of the best and finest at different times, all of them being my mentors and gurus in some way. I remember pinging Rahul, our go-to guy in finance, at 4 A.M. in the morning to understand every transaction and entry, running downstairs to catch Bhuvan San (our Co-founder and CTO) for a tech requirement, sitting with Asish in board meetings and equity conversations and being wowed by his unparalleled people engagement and communication skills, listening to Lokesh (founding team & commercial head) meticulously explaining accounting fundas, learning calmness and self-belief from day to day interactions with Ruchi, and understanding ground realities from engaging sessions with Ankush, Vikram, and Vivek. Above all, I owe a big one to my super special team, for bearing with my eccentricities and pushing our collective boundaries to get the best possible outcome. Without all of them, it wasn’t going to be this special.
Finally, times will never be always easy and journeys will never be smooth forever. Tough times test the ability to survive and proud to be part of, and growing with an enterprise that has demonstrated it time and again.