Shareathon 2018: Celebrating Business Storytelling
The Institute of Product Leadership’s annual business storytelling event, Shareathon, sees enthusiastic participation from executives across the board every year. This year, 150+ professionals and students came together at the CMRIT Bangalore campus to celebrate the power of effective storytelling for business.
The event began with a workshop on Mastering Voice and Body Language to Build Executive Presence by Shaleel Nalakath (Leadership Coach) with the audience on their feet, performing voice modulation exercises. This was followed by Rakesh Godhwani (Adjunct Professor, Business Communication at IIM-B) taking to the podium with his story—a journey riddled with amusing anecdotes, a fluke job offer and the ultimate transformation from engineering student to communications guru. Both speakers had the audience enthralled by their own storytelling skills and the ability to make every bit of advice they gave relatable and easy to digest.
The most anticipated part of the day, the storytelling contest, brought to the forefront vivid stories on everything from inspirational women to flying cars by the IPL student participants. Set in reality show style, the 3 judges Shaleel, Rakesh and Ambarish scored each participant out of 10 and provided them detailed feedback. Live voting by the audience after each participant’s story added an element of surprise and excitement, with everyone anxiously watching the screen as numbers were tallied in real time. It was ultimately Karthi Subbaraman that stole the show with her sharp, witty and thought provoking presentation on the role microbes play in regulating one’s health and documentation of her own experiments as evidence. The EMBA 2016 B cohort was adjudged the best batch and walked away with a sparkling trophy amid many cheers from the rest of the students.
Ambarish Kenghe (Chief Product Officer, Myntra and Co-Founder, Chromecast) then shared his life story with the audience—taking them back to his days in college, the Bay area, and his quest for ‘adventure’ in India. Ambarish’s useful tips for cracking business pitches and examples of his favourite stories that he uses to inspire others were the perfect end to a successful day of sharing and growing together as storytellers in business.
Shareathon 2018 was also featured in the Business Standard.
