Acknowledgments

THIS BOOK IS ONE of the milestones of my journey. Many people have helped shape my learning, thought process and experiences along the way. To all of them, my thanks and deepest gratitude. They include:

• My parents, who were so excited that I was writing a textbook that they encouraged, pushed, and stayed awake into the wee hours of the morning as I worked through the manuscript.
• My wife, Suman, who patiently bore my long absences with cheer, enthusiasm, and encouragement.
• Our first born Tara, who emerged into the world during the copyediting, lighting up the house in general.
• My friend Gourang Shah, one of the finest brains to have graced the financial sector and a gem of a human being. As he transitioned from being a client to a colleague to dear friend and go-to guy, Gourang’s clear thinking, solution orientation, and broad vision have greatly helped my own thinking and learning. Indeed, I’m not sure if I would have written this book without his expertise and moral support.
• My colleagues at my former employer, Citi, who provided the excitement and bonding in our common journeys. They included bosses, mentors, team members, and colleagues around the world: V. Srikanth, Sim Lim, Tushar Gundecha, B. V. Krishnan, Vikram Sud, Amol Gupte, Kumar Ramachandran, Umang Moondra, Anand Chopra, Rahul Singh, Akshaya Bhargava, John Gilson, Okan Pekin, Petr Roegner, Fahmi Sami, V. H. Suresh, Puneet Singhvi, H. N. Patil, V. Sankaran, N. A. Dorai, Sankara Subramoni, N. Mahalakshmi, S. Narayanan, and the team at the old branch in Chennai, Adam Gilmour, Rodrigo Zorilla, Paco Ybarra, Nadir Mahmud, Vipul Chandra, Manish Bhai, Malay Ghatak, Saneth Gamage, Jackque Diasz, Nirupan Wijeyanathan, Kapila Jayawardene, Thivanka Atukorala, Ravin Basnayake, Pushkaraj Gumaste, Priya Taori, David Rosa, Sanjay Nayar, Dennis Hussey, Ravikumar Balasubramaniam, Ananth Doraswamy, Vijayan Subramani, and others.
• My professors at my alma mater, XLRI: Dr H. K. Pradhan, Dr Madhukar Shukla, Dr Sharad Sarin, Dr R. K. Premarajan, and Dr T.A.S. Vijayaraghavan.
• Associates who have helped shape Aktrea to what it is today: Dr Dayanath Jayasuriya, Arvind Mathur, Charana Jayasuriya, Avancka Herath, Dr G. Balasubramanian (IFMR Chennai), and Mukund Santhanam.
• Many denizens of the corporate world. For want of space I must restrict the list: Suresh Senapaty, Lan Lakshminarayana and R. Sivakumar (Wipro), V. Balakrishnan (Infosys), and Piyush Gupta (DBS).
• My fantastic contributors—a big thank you for your perspectives and inputs to make this book more meaningful: Gourang Shah (Citi), Dr Hong Zhang and Anne Yang (INSEAD), Dr Jeevan Perera (NASA), Damian Glenndinning (Lenovo), Dean Sharrar and Derek Phillip (Bancorp), Mick Lopez (Aricent), Kelvin Hayes (SGS), Suresh Senapaty and Shankar Jagannathan (Wipro), Rakesh Dhamani (Times Group), and Carlo Palmers and David Dobbing (SWIFT).
• Jim Kaitz of the Association of Finance Professionals for very kindly agreeing to write a foreword for the book, and Steven M. Bragg, Sim S. Lim, V. Srikanth, and Yasantha Dissanayake for their readings and endorsements. It means a lot to me, and thank you.
• My adorable and incredibly patient and sweet publisher Nick Melchior, for all the support and ease with which he took everything end to end. Nick, it’s been an absolute pleasure to work with you.
• The other support personnel at John Wiley & Sons: Gemma Rosey for sifting through the technological basis of formatting and providing amazing team spirit, Jules Yap for coordination, and Stefan Skeen for his responsiveness, patience, and value-add through the process (which included bravely risk-managing Hurricane Sandy).
• Thomson Reuters for assistance in providing, for research and data in the book, access to Thomson Reuters Eikon for Corporate Treasury, a popular tool with market information, news, analytics, and trading capabilities for corporates. Special thanks to Prabodh Shetty, Fiona Shaw, and Oliver Otto from Thomson Reuters.
• Our tech-man, P. Manikandan, for his work on the app and topping up the site.
• My assistant Mukesh Sharma, who assisted with all the formatting and sometimes research, keeping the administrative and Website hearth burning while I was working on the book.