Welcome.
I am an Indian communications professional currently looking for roles in Hong Kong. (If you want my CV, it’s here. This CV might be more suitable for Corp Comms/PR roles.) I am willing to look for roles beyond the world of media after spending nearly a decade in the field. Most recently, I worked as a staff writer for Asian Venture Capital Journal covering private equity and venture capital activity in India and Southeast Asia. I am a creative, empathetic, loyal and diligent worker who loves cross-cultural settings and I like to help out in every way I can. Many people have remarked that I am a good team player. Since I left India in 2000, I believe I have a global perspective yet I am anchored by strong Asian values.
Some of my bylines
- At AVCJ, I wrote 300 articles in just over 150 days interviewing more than 140 people in nearly eight months
- I wrote about Jio Platforms long before Facebook and Google invested in the Indian subsidiary of Reliance Industries (March 2020). A follow-up article explains better what Jio Platforms is trying to do
- I wrote about India’s edtech sector as it was heating up (July 2020)
- I wrote about how the process of due diligence (is this start-up really as good as it says it is?) was affected by the COVID-19 pandemic (July 2020)
- I wrote about how fintechs that facilitate online lending in Asian emerging markets responded to the COVID-19 pandemic (July 2020)
- I wrote three good stories narrating the history of three separate firms – DSG Consumer Partners looks for upcoming consumer brands in India, Gaja Capital bats for the underdogs while Gobi Partners hails from China and is now firmly focused on Southeast Asia
- I had an extraordinary editor so the articles were really quite something. There was not a day when I was not busy
Previously, I have written for Corporate Treasurer (the articles were about a very niche topic in finance), Quartz, Hong Kong Free Press and Fox Sports Asia. For the early part of my career, I was primarily a sports journalist. I wrote about Formula One, football and mixed martial arts. In 2015, I went back home to India and set up the corporate communications department at an Indian nonprofit. It was my first managerial role wherein I recruited and managed a team of five people making life a little easier for the incoming head of communications
I have a diverse set of skills (writing, editing, video-based storytelling, video editing, project management, social media management, interviewing, researching) and I have worked at fintechs, nonprofits, media (newspapers and online media) and film production. I studied economics at the National University of Singapore and I completed a master’s in journalism at the University of Hong Kong. I am also looking to learn Chinese (I started learning it when I was 16) and I hope to become a bilingual communications professional by the end of the decade.
Other projects
- I also scripted, helped carry out casting for and produced five independent short films in Singapore and that experience taught me a lot about project management (here’s a two-minute film called ‘Morning Beauty‘ that I think is worth watching)
- I am also a storyteller and I perform spoken word stories with the local storytelling group Hong Kong Stories and my regular performances over the years have greatly improved my public speaking skills (here’s a spoken word story about the time when I agonized [Spotify] over having to conduct a religious ritual after moving to Hong Kong and ‘losing my religion’)
Journalism school
Some of the stories that I wrote while at journalism school in Hong Kong cover topics apart from sports and finance
- I wrote about the life of a Chinese imam in Hong Kong
- I penned a critical business review of a wellness gym (it was basically a gym operating a MLM outfit)
- I interviewed long-term backpackers who don’t seem to want to stop traveling
- I looked into why elderly Chinese migrate like snowbirds during the winter among many other projects
If given the right training and support, I believe I can do quite a bit. I speak English, Hindi, Tulu, Kannada and a smattering of Chinese. In the past, I studied Spanish and French. I like to jog and cook. I live in North Point in Hong Kong.