“Failing to plan is planning to fail” is a quote that Nisha Mittal has truly believed in, all throughout her professional journey. Nisha is working with Ayurvet as Chief Financial Officer in her journey, she has been successful in building an organization, which is financially strong, believes in corporate governance, robust in compliance management, fulfils its social and environment responsibility and doing business on a sustainable basis. She believes that excellence cannot be achieved in one day, but with continuous efforts, discipline and hard work on daily basis. In an exclusive interview, she takes us through her professional journey and experiences that made her evolve throughout her career and the milestones achieved.

Give us a brief detail about your educational background and professional background and how has it helped you in your journey so far?

I am a qualified Cost Accountant (ICWA) and I believe developing right type of vision, attitude, and outlook is equally important. Some of the trainings in early career really helped me to channelize my mind into the right direction.

I started my career at the age of 21 with Amul (GCMMF) where transactions were voluminous. Systems and structured processes helped to handle transactions with efficiency. Launch of liquid milk involved dealing with local doodhwalas and encouraging them towards same day banking operations for fast rotation of the business. I believe that the cash flow of the company is similar as the blood flow of the body. Therefore, it is essential for a healthy business. My second assignment was with Adlabs Films - Big FM, where I interacted with the young crowd-RJs-creative team and making them aware about financial disciplines was interesting. My early experiences of disciplined financial management helped to build modules that helped in transformation, better controls etc.

Family plays an important role in every person’s life. How has your family supported you in your career so far? Also, how do you manage to balance between your personal & professional life?

I come from a middle class and my humble background taught me to learn different tactics from beginning to handle life. My family always gave me freedom to pursue my dreams and this gave me a push to be independent from the beginning. Post marriage, supportive in-laws and husband made things easy to maintain the balance. Being a woman, you play different roles like daughter, sister, wife, and mother and this teaches you to deliver efficiently.

“I rather consider the challenges as the learning experiences. Every problem can be solved if you look at it as a puzzle and solve it with the same excitement.”

I consider every experience of my life as a learning milestone. This attitude helped me develop a gogetter approach and evolve. While working at Ayurvet, I worked into several roles, shuffl ing different hats in different situations like change agent, transformer, infl uencer, team player. This also involved working with different age groups. If I have conviction in something, proper rationale, then I get focused and my mind automatically starts working towards its execution and successful implementation. You need to have the rightvision and the right approach.

“I consider the challenges as the learning experiences. Every problem can be solved if you look at it as a puzzle and solve it with the same excitement”

How do you ensure to update yourself with the latest industry trends and technologies so that you could always steer your organization towards the zenith?

Dissemination of information is very fast these days through technology and different social platforms. I attend different seminars and training sessions organized by expert law and accounting fi rms. Since I am in management Committee of Delhi Management Association, we get chance to interact with different industry experts. Participation in CFO Leadership submit, interaction with different stakeholders on matters like - government policies, economic reforms, new export policy, GST, new accounting standards, Companies Act 2013, MSME new definitions, new banking regulations, Cyber Laws, etc. keep me well versed with trends. Regulatory environment is so dynamic in nature, one needs to keep themselves abreast with latest rules. Keeping organization compliance proof is integral part of my job.

In your professional journey so far, which are the milestones that bestowed you utmost satisfaction - both as an individual and a Ayurvet?

Transformation of Ayurvet into a cash surplus company is one of the milestones that brought me utmost satisfaction. Some of the other achievements are

-Crisil’s top rating

-D&B 4A2 rating

-Sustainability reporting as per international GRI guidelines

-Getting “Excellence in Finance transformation” Award in CFO leadership Submit

-Getting “Excellence in CSR” from CII ITC substantiality Awards

-Handling some of the challenging IT cases

On the personal front, I enjoy painting and poetry writing in my free time. My favourite cuisine is South Indian food and my favourite travel destination is Goa.