Success Story: Darren says “Goodbye Deutsche, Hello Smartkarma!”

Darren was one of our SpringBoard success stories in 2013 (link to story here). Luck was however not on his side, as the global investment bank he joined decided to close down the commodities desk a few months later.  We see this trend of global banks closing down proprietary trading/commodities trading desk likely to continue. Darren, therefore, took a step back early part of this year and did some serious soul-searching what he really wanted to achieve in life. He never forgot the SpringBoard slogan “Continue Learning and Keep On Networking” that Yoman taught him, and just continued to upgrade himself and constantly building new contacts, without expecting anything in return.

One day, he bumped into Raghav at one of his gym workouts. Raghav and Darren had originally met some two years ago when Raghav, who was then a Managing Director at Religare Capital Markets Singapore, hosted a SpringBoard event. As they started chatting, Darren shared his story with Raghav. With his open-mindedness and entrepreneurial spirit, Darren struck an immediate chord.

As luck would have it, Raghav was, at that very time, was embarking on an innovative new venture. This platform, called Smartkarma, was a bold effort to bring technology and finance together to create a whole new way to for investors to make better investment decisions.

Things progressed from there, and after multiple rounds of conversations, Darren was recruited to work at Smartkarma. He is excited as he joins a talented, experienced and world-class team in this effort to change the investment landscape.

Two points to highlight here: (1) this encounter was totally unplanned; and (2) Darren was not expecting anything from Raghav. Recall that Networking is social, casual, and it’s about connecting with everyone you meet without expectation of “getting something in return”. Darren has approached networking with the right mindset, and can therefore continue to be our success story. As Seneca, the famous Roman philosopher, once said, “Luck is when hard work meets opportunity.”