Waiting for the new Board – Interview with Kiran Kumar Chereddy, MCAA Ordinary Board Member
You have been Ordinary Member of the MCAA Board since November 2013. How would you describe this experience?
Being an ordinary board member is a great experience. Giving advice, counselling as and when required to ExCom, taking crucial assignments, leading a working group, participating in brainstorming sessions and solving problems – all of these helped me to grow professionally and to develop many soft skills. Voluntary activities that involve highly educated and well qualified people such as MCAA members has given me great visibility and networking opportunities. With no reservations and doubts, I can say that my MCAA experience has been one of the greatest contributing factors to me getting an amazing job at Novartis!
What did you learn?
If you ask me what the most complicated task that one can imagine is, my immediate answer would be 'managing people'. Yes, surprisingly this is well proven in many studies and many companies are looking for those people who can manage projects with big teams. Within the MCAA, I learnt how to manage projects, take decisions, convince and lead people, churn ideas around and think with vision – to do whatever we could whilst keeping in mind the MCAA's large human potential.
Involving and engaging people, getting things right within deadlines and organising meetings these are all part of MCAA board members' jobs. To end the long list of skills and competences I gained within these two years: the best quality that one can learn is 'respecting all equally'.
Which tasks did you deal with?
It was great to be part of the first MCAA board, which has tonnes of things to develop, experiment, implement while paving a visionary path. Participating in discussions/brainstorming sessions and helping/supporting ExCom in taking fruitful decisions are part of my tasks. I chair IGCMT (internal governance and chapter management team), which acts as a node for chapters and their coordination. Representing the MCAA, answering queries from chapters and encouraging inter chapter cooperation are some of the IGCMT’s important tasks.
I wrote the first draft of the external finances procurement procedure, and this was the starting material for our finance Working Group. As I lived in Brussels, I participated in some external partnership meetings, such as EuroDoc and the Erasmus Student Network associations, just to mention a few. All in all, I can definitely say that there are many opportunities and tasks that need active volunteers and many ways to learn skills from them.
What would you like to say to encourage Alumni to put themselves forward as candidates for this position?
The MCAA board itself has a responsible and accountable role. So, be very active, grab opportunities and enjoy implementing new ideas for the betterment of our MCAA. You will very much appreciate participating in MCAA. All the best!