Entrepreneurship Has Always Been a Part of Who I Am - Abhineet Kumar



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1. Tell us more about yourself and your life.

Until recently, I worked in an internal consulting role at American Airlines in Dallas working with senior leadership on special projects pertaining to strategy and finance. Before that I was at Amazon working on the supply chain team for their Office Products category. Prior to that, I ran early stage teams at different startups in India and Indonesia.


I am moving back to India to pivot back to tech and entrepreneurship. Currently, I am in the midst of building a team and identifying startup opportunities.

I write about my entrepreneurial journey in my newsletter, Building Rituals and Chasing Dreams and host a podcast on venture stories, tech trends, startup opportunities and productivity.


2. What led you into the field of Finance and entrepreneurship?

I have always enjoyed building teams tackling problems that create a difference in people's lives -- I experienced it the first time when I built Rocketfood, a food delivery company some years back. Entrepreneurship has always been a part of who I am -- I believe whether you are building a business or not, you can always have a "can-do" entrepreneurial attitude which helps a lot.


My MBA program at Georgetown gave me time and opportunity to learn finance, especially in the context of when we scale businesses from early stage to growth stage to even going public. My work at Amazon and American Airlines made me understand it even better.


3. What is that one cause you care deeply about and why?

Empowering others around me to help them achieve their best -- to become a 10x version of themselves. It ends up teaching me so much, creates tangible impact in someone's life, and drives ahead the culture of paying it forward and teaching someone else what you learnt.


4. If one wants to contribute and make a difference in the Finance space, how can they do it?

Well, if you're getting started I'd recommend consuming information around the field by watching movies, reading books and blogs, and even enrolling in a finance fundamentals course on EdX, Coursera, or Udemy to see whether you enjoy it or not.

Now, there are many aspects to finance, each of which you could explore more once you've developed a baseline understanding of the subject.


5. Who is your role model and why?

My dad who is a doctor and healthcare entrepreneur has been a big influence in my life especially because of what I have learnt from him about how to lead and how to create a difference in people's lives.


6. What are some of challenges and roadblocks you have faced along your journey?

Many. I'm sure all of us do. The important thing is to not to take them to heart, enjoy failures as much as successes. It becomes easy to bounce back then.


7. Your opinion about the current situation with respect to your industry ?

These are tough times for everyone -- I truly believe that humankind will bounce back stronger through this.

With respect to a couple of industries I have been associated in the past: travel including the airlines industry has taken a beating, and things are looking tough at the moment.

E-commerce has definitely seen a bright spot and capturing tremendous value -- it is their aha moment, and perhaps accelerated consumer usage in 5 months what would usually have taken 5-10 years.





Interviewed by - Dhairya

Edited by - Vayun Sahni