Pushing the barriers of excellence

An EY alumnus and EuroKids Chief Financial Officer Rajiv Pillai shares his exceptional EY experience.

Born and based in Mumbai, Rajiv is a true Mumbaikar. Coming from a middle-class family, his mother worked for the railways and his father worked with a pharmaceuticals firm. Rajiv considers himself fortunate for receiving a good education at a convent school with great teachers, some of whom changed the course of his life. It was during his college days, deeply inspired by his brother-in-law who was a Chartered Accountant and worked for a Big Four, that Rajiv decided to pursue a CA degree.

Beginning of the EY journey 

Rajiv started his career with the prestigious mid-sized firm called Mahajan & Aibara as an article intern. His stint at EY began in 2001, when he got the opportunity to work with the management assurance services practice, now known as business advisory services, which was starting up at that time. As soon as the results of his CA exams came, he was promoted to an associate within three months. “I was thrilled when I got the joining letter. It was a big moment in my life,” he reminisces. That led to the beginning of Rajiv’s EY journey, which he refers to as one of the fondest and the most enriching ones of his career.

The EY experience - from mundane to the magnificent

At EY, Rajiv’s experience straddled across many areasꟷ from process audit to integrated IP audit, process advisory, consulting, business advisory, firm cost reduction, market assessment commercial strategyꟷ during his 10-year stint. He saw the firm scale up and grow relentlessly. He remembers his decade long journey with EY as a great learning experience. From mundane to the magnificent, is how he describes his initial EY experience. In his initial days he got a chance to do everything from physical verification, to cost reduction and process improvement assignments. He remembers doing assignments across sectors including steel, FMCG, advertising, core manufacturing, and pharmaceuticals.

“At EY, we were always pushing the barriers of excellence”, he added.

Of fond memories and relationships at EY

Rajiv recollects working with a very closely-knit group, like a family. When he joined the firm, his practice had about 30 people. By the time he left, the firm had scaled up and there were over 3,000 people in the practice with over 10,000 people in the firm. Rajiv used to work at EY’s Nariman Point – Express Towers office. He has very fond memories of breaking bread with his friends at EY. One of the things that Rajiv really misses about his EY experience is traveling across India and the world. “I got to meet so many people across cultures with different perspectives and it really broadened my horizon” he cherishes. He also got a chance to work in the US for the ‘India Advantage Program’ and served many large clients. At the same time, Rajiv saw a lot of growth and potential in India and decided to come back.

Talking about how the EY experience shaped him, “EY had a very rigorous work ethic. The experience with the firm really shaped me in terms of structured thinking, attention to detail, and root cause analysis. There was a strong focus on excellence and every assignment was about delivering value to the client”. According to Rajiv, EY has the most amazing client services, which includes understanding client issues and trying to view solutions that matter to the client. “I am fortunate to have learnt all these skills from the stellar professionals that I worked with at the firm”, he added.

Moving on from EY – the second phase of his career

In 2011, Rajiv realized that he had enjoyed doing a variety of work at EY and was desirous of adding more value from the other side of the table i.e. getting industry experience. That is when his stint at Lupin, a global pharmaceutical company, began where he spent close to nine years. Rajiv knew and had worked with Ramesh Swaminathan, CFO, Lupin who provided him the opportunity to join the organization. He mentored Rajiv and gave him the guidance and freedom at work to achieve newer heights. Rajiv joined Lupin as the Head of Corporate Planning and Investor Relations and subsequently led the business finance group. According to him, Lupin was a very fulfilling and different part of his professional career, as he got to experience the business from the perspective of the management and the investor community. He saw the company scale up from a Rs. 5,000 crore turnover to Rs.15,000 crores during this stint. The challenge was to ensure that systems, processes and people keep the pace of the growth. The business finance team was involved in all major transformation initiatives and he is proud of the benchmarks that were set on excellence by the team. He recruited fresh talent and built the business finance team and started the CA training program at Lupin. In his last role at Lupin, he was appointed as the Head of Finance, IT, and procurement for North America, and Finance for Latin America and EMEA.

Next chapter unfolds – EuroKids International 

Rajiv feels that it is important to disrupt and challenge oneself from time to time. When he got an opportunity to join EuroKids International, one of the leading education service providers in the country, he decided to take it up. Rajiv is the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of the KKR-backed company. Talking more about why he decided to join the company, he said, “I had never worked in the education sector, but I believe that it has a great amount of potential. My interaction with the management team and the idea of working in a sector which has such tremendous potential for influencing the development and future of our country further reinforced my decision to join the company”.  

Rajiv is thoroughly enjoying his time at the company and is very excited about how things are shaping up in the education sector and for the company. Throwing light on how EuroKids is differentiating itself in the market, he says, “Until the pandemic, we were providing education in the school premises, however the pandemic has presented us with the opportunity to extend our business to a 3 stack model with an online, physical classroom and the hybrid version of online and in-school learning.”

India’s growth story

Rajiv sincerely believes in India’s growth story and feels that the best is yet to come. Particularly after the pandemic, he trusts that the economy and industries are going to bounce back, and investments and growth will be at a much-accelerated pace. Talking more about the pandemic, he says “It has taught us that we are enormously resilient, and the power of the human spirit is undeniable”. He further adds that the pandemic has broken all notions and myths of what cannot be done.

“The pandemic surely took away a lot from us, but it has also given us things that we should make a lot more out of,” he adds.

Consulting versus industry

Rajiv believes that working in consulting and the industry has its own set of merits. Consulting provides a diversity of experience, keeps you abreast with newer technologies, and involves taking on the challenges where you are thought leaders to advise clients. He recommends that young professionals should spend some time in consulting in the initial years as it teaches one about how to think from a client perspective, structure thoughts, articulate one’s views and have a solution-oriented focus. Talking more about it, he says, while the consultant’s job is to recommend, the corporate’s job is to implement, and the final execution of recommendations is what resides with the corporates. The common thing across both the roles is – how are we adding value, which also has been Rajiv’s guiding principle. “As a professional, whether in consulting or corporate, our responsibility should be to work and deliver three aspects of value: value creation, value protection, and value enablement,” he adds.

Work philosophies

Some philosophies that Rajiv learnt at EY and continues to abide by are – getting the right person for the job, overinvesting in people – the people element is central to success, always getting people who are smarter than yourself, consciously rotating people and giving them opportunities to work on different assignments, giving people the freedom to operate and keeping them motivated. “If you focus on integrity, humility, and excellence within teams, you are there,” he adds.

Beyond work

Rajiv starts his day by playing badminton and it is something that refreshes him every morning. Rajiv thoroughly enjoyed running half marathons in the past and wants to start running again. His dream is to run a triathlon, which is an endurance multisport race consisting of swimming, cycling, and running over various distances. Rajiv is an avid traveller and misses traveling during the COVID times. He wishes to explore most of the Himalayas while trekking and mountaineering. A big foodie himself, Rajiv enjoys meeting new people, embracing new cultures and relishing the food of these cultures. He shares that it is something that he got from EY because of the work travel that he did. He has a keen interest in watching movies and interestingly can watch movies across various languages like Korean and Spanish. He feels that sport and spending time with friends and people one feels happy in the company of, is very important in life. “I am sure that’s true for everybody but in life, the four things that I focus on are health, family, work, and friends” he adds.