I'm Shaun Geogy Thomas, a student of the Master of Applied Finance and Wealth Management (MFWM) at SP Jain Global. I'm delighted to share that I've been placed with Nuvama Wealth Management as a Wealth Relationship Manager. Before SP Jain Global, I completed my B.Com at Rajagiri College, Kochi, and cleared NISM Series VIII. I'm now preparing for CFA Level I this November.
The applied nature of the program. Almost nothing stayed on the whiteboard. We built an Investment Policy Statement and a forty-year financial plan for a client, mapping how her risk appetite should shift from accumulation to retirement. We ran a portfolio optimisation on Indian mid and small-cap stocks and hedged live Nifty futures positions in Excel.
What stayed with me most, though, was the work on family wealth and ethics. A succession assignment on a large Indian business family showed me that the hardest problems in wealth management are often emotional and legal, not financial. Designing staged vesting and trust structures taught me that an advisor protects relationships as much as returns. Writing a case on cognitive decline and fiduciary duty reminded me that trust is the only real product we sell.
SP Jain Global’s placement preparation taught me that recruitment is a skill in itself. Mock interviews, psychometric test practice, and feedback on how I told my story made a real difference. I learned to research a firm the way an analyst researches a stock, going deep into leadership, strategy, and competitive position, and then to turn that research into a clear answer to "why us?" Going through multiple interview processes during placements sharpened this further, so by the time Nuvama's process came around, I was calm, structured, and prepared.
Our faculty pushed us to question the brief before answering it. In our pension product case on reaching India's informal workforce, our professors challenged our team to test whether the profit target itself was realistic. We reframed it around achievable AUM economics and built a phased plan with a clear regulatory path. That habit of stress-testing assumptions gave me confidence, because I learned I didn't need to know everything, only how to think it through honestly.
Beyond the classroom, our mentors were always available for a conversation, whether it was reviewing a financial plan late in the evening or helping me frame my answers before an interview. Their honest feedback, sometimes uncomfortable to hear, showed me where I needed to improve and pushed me to hold myself to the standard a real client would expect. That support turned knowledge into confidence.
Sessions with practitioners changed how I saw the industry. Leadership talks from private banking and wealth management heads, networking conversations with senior bankers, and pre-placement talks showed me that client relationships are built over years, and that the best relationship managers are first and foremost good listeners. My capstone project on India's mass affluent and NRI wealth opportunity across the GCC, Europe, and Africa also showed me where the industry's growth is really coming from.
The clearest moment was when I prepared for Nuvama. Using the research approach I'd developed at SP Jain Global, I studied Nuvama's structure, including how its wealth business differs from its alternatives arm, and then went further to study the Kerala market specifically: its NRI remittance-driven wealth, the competitive landscape, and how a new relationship manager could source clients beyond an existing database. Being able to speak about the client, and not just the product, is something MFWM drilled into us, and it's what I relied on most in my conversations with Nuvama.
MFWM has given me three things I'll carry into this role. The first is technical grounding: asset allocation, derivatives, private credit, retirement planning, and regulation. The second is a client-first mindset, shaped by our work on succession, ethics, and financial planning. The third is the confidence that comes from leadership outside class, through my roles in the Finance Club and IIP coordination, where I learned to manage people, timelines, and pressure. Securing this role with Nuvama feels like the natural result of everything the program set out to build. I'm stepping into it not just with knowledge, but with a far deeper understanding of what wealth really means to the families I'll serve.
I came to SP Jain Global knowing finance. I'm leaving understanding wealth, and the people behind it.
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