We recently connected with Rajnarind Kaur and have shared our conversation below.
Rajnarind, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. To kick things off, we’d love to hear about things you or your brand do that diverge from the industry standard
Typically, a SWOT Analysis is conducted on a company, but in my classroom, I ask my business school students to submit a detailed personal SWOT analysis on themselves in order to identify their strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. As a concept, strategic management is quite theoretical, so my twist to make a difference and have an impact in the lives of my students for just one semester is to personalize the content for them as individuals. I knew I needed to make it relevant and specific to them. What better way than for students to think about their post-graduation plans? They would be forced to articulate their competitive advantage and unique value in upcoming interviews. They would need to spin their distinct stories to land the positions they covet.
This application of an internal and external assessment forces a company to make certain strategic decisions based on their own skills, resources and that of their competitors. This may be better explained with a company scenario example:
I am the sole proprietor of a small restaurant business where my strengths are my chefs, brand loyalty, and location. However, improvements can be made in two key areas: marketing, specifically digital media, and delivery orders. Driven by competitors, I know that I need to mitigate my weaknesses and put some action plans in place. I need to hire an influential digital marketer and outsource my deliveries thru a reliable service.
When analyzing one’s own strengths and areas of improvement, it becomes clear to play to one’s strengths and have mitigation plans to decrease the effects of the weaknesses. Externally, the weaknesses can become opportunities as seen in the following personal example:
I am a student athlete, captain of my university’s Division 1 baseball team, majoring in finance with a 3.9 GPA. I have had no internships due to intense year-round practices. However, my strengths are effective leadership, efficient time management and a strong discipline. Utilizing my network from the university and baseball, I hope to land a role in investment banking.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
With a focus on strategy, leadership, and finance, I graduated with an Executive MBA from Stern Business School at New York University. I began my professional career in investment banking on Wall Street in J.P. Morgan’s prestigious management development program focusing on Equity Derivatives and leveraged internal consulting to begin my program management and corporate development journey. I have managed global programs creating internal governance structures/frameworks and led internal training on specific methodologies. I have successfully progressed at and travelled extensively with Credit Suisse, JPMorgan Chase, Deutsche Bank, and Prudential Financial. I am currently a business school professor at several universities making a difference, having an impact, giving back, and following my passion and zeal for education.
I provide my expertise to teach the youth, adults, both men and women plus veterans and mothers who are transitioning back into the workforce, newly immigrated individuals to whom English is not their native language as well as those who are always looking to improve themselves. Through the ‘Art of Speaking’ where I am the founding principal, I empower individuals to confidently develop their leadership, analytical and public speaking skills.
I keep myself quite busy outside of work as well as I am the award-winning narrator for NishkamTV’s film, ‘Declaration of a Revolution’, PBS’s featured documentary, ‘Walking into the Unknown’, the animated ‘Sahibzadey’ movie and ’35 Akhar’ tutorial from Vismaad productions, and the ever-popular ‘Bani Pro1’ and ‘Bani Pro2’, recordings to help those who are desirous of learning the correct pronunciation of Gurbani and to whom Punjabi is not their native language. I am also involved in a variety of different community aspects from teaching music, counselling children and parents, speaking at different forums, facilitating events, conducting training workshops, coordinating large scale conferences and marketing products. I serve on the board of several non-profit organizations.
How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?
I recently published where I discussed my pivot in detail. I have taken an excerpt from my chapter ‘Larhs of Love’ from ‘Kaurs ReImagine’ and added it below.
My journey was aggressive and mapped to senior executive management with all the glory, accolades, and success as defined by societal pressures, the proverbial career ladder and ‘successful life’ checklist. I never imagined that I would leave this fast-paced sophisticated industry as Wall Street was my dream destination.
Little did I know, that I would face an internal struggle and the need to shift when my boys grew older. Usually, the guilt feeling, the tug of motherhood, is strong when you drop your babies off at daycare at three months and leave for the city at 6am only to come home after 9pm. The support of both my parents in raising my boys is unshakable and truly, my backbone. They moved from my childhood home on the Jersey Shore to fifteen minutes from me in Princeton in their effort to help in any way they could including eliminating my feelings of ‘working mom’s guilt’. However, for me, the conscious pivot came later when my oldest son started high school and my priorities changed. Sports played a huge part in my high school career and I didn’t want my boys losing out on those friendships, experiences, and challenges. My four boys, including my husband, needed me now more than when they were younger. In all transparency, though, it is definitely hard to leave my Wall Street image.
I don’t think I can shed her completely nor will she be forgotten. By listening closely to that internal voice, my intuition, I slowly have started to unwrap and unravel quite a surprising journey with no set destination, no defined audience, no prepared speech to deliver into the microphone. There is no Wall Street equivalent. It does have a map of some sort, but with no constraints of industry. It is a map of passion, life, and skills. To pursue what I enjoy, teaching and passing on my expertise, life lessons, and career advice. I realize that I am blessed and fortunate to have the privilege to pursue such a change. A huge risk viewed earlier in life seems minimal now. Maybe it is that I obtained what I needed from corporate America to become ‘Fearless Girl’, the bronze sculpture I used to always pass in NYC’s Financial District.
I can only expand upon my whole identity, bringing my entire self to academia now, the university classroom, hopefully impacting individuals at a completely different level. It is a mindset change and I have come to realize that anyone can do anything as long as they set their mind to it. It’s not brain surgery, having survived that as well, a few years ago. Everything happens for a reason and once we realize, accept and live in ‘hukam’ (Divine will), we begin to live with no worries, no regrets, stress is minimized, and negativity does not enter nor is entertained.
How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?
I believe my reputation was built on a foundation of truly listening to my clients and delivering personalized value. Rather than taking a one-size-fits-all approach, I focused on creating custom classes tailored specifically to what each client wanted to work on. This meant really understanding their goals, challenges, and learning style.
My approach has always been rooted in empathy and patience – I recognize that everyone progresses at their own pace and faces different obstacles. This created an environment where clients felt comfortable, supported, and confident to push themselves.
The quality of service became evident in the results my clients achieved, and that naturally led to strong word-of-mouth referrals. When people see genuine care combined with tangible outcomes, they become your best advocates. I found that this organic growth through referrals was not only the most sustainable way to build my business, but also brought me clients who were already primed for success because they came with trust and realistic expectations.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://artofspeakingnj.com/
- Instagram: @artofspeakingnj
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rajnarind/
- Other: https://open.spotify.com/album/2wx36YXbpe9hOKnDA4xdhXhttps://www.pbs.org/video/walking-into-the-unknown-fdwui5/
