Addressing the unconventional ways of dreaming without boundaries
An undaunting mind who toiled through numerous adversities in life and reach the vertex. Jayaprakash Kalappan is a real-world example of rising from obscurity to heights of fame who paved through challenges at an age when kids barely knew about the world. Born in a lower middle-class family didn’t let him feel distant from dreams and he started part-time jobs to manage the basic needs for his studies.
Jayaprakash’s interface with hardship during his childhood fuelled his desire to achieve success in life. After completion of his Chartered Accountant professional course, Jayaprakash plunged into the corporate world in 2001 and learned about different corporate cultures, people and atmospheres while justifying different profiles. With more than 20 years of emblazoned experience ranging from financial strategy to secretarial and strategic alliances, Jayaprakash is also holding the fellow membership of Institutes of Cost Accountants and Company Secretaries of India.
As a CFO & Company Secretary at Panasonic Appliances India Company Limited, Chennai Jayaprakash does not only finds himself responsible for a company’s past and present financial situation, he considers that it plays a key role in a company’s future potential growth.
Intensively abiding by his principles and his passion for Honesty, never giving up, Diligence, and relentless learning has made his path more entrusted to different stakeholders in the business. As a Finance professional Jayaprakash is holding on to the statement, “Professionalism makes a man perfect”, he believes that if you want to be unique from the crowd, keep learning. But do learn which is most relevant to the career and life, and for society. He also strongly believes that age is no bar for learning and growth. Therefore, never stop it because life never stops teaching.
A distinct personality, Jayaprakash Kalappan considers always being straight forward, and quick decision maker. “I have faced many challenges in various situations while making the decisions. Last two decades, my reaction was the same as what I do now. I always tell myself that if you are going to change for someone or something, it will become a habit, to change for everything. And you may lose your own identity.” shares Jayaprakash.
The loyalty towards stakeholders of the organization, wherever he works, Jayaprakash has elucidated, how he is working to return back the better results in terms of profit, wages and benefits, and environment, social and governance.
Ask him about the potential challenge of Covid 19, and he reveals, “Covid-19 pandemic is an unprecedented event and targeted entire society globally… We have faced the cash crisis due to slow collection from our customers which was an impact of the entire market and malls shut down. To facilitate and support the customers, we have extended the credit terms to them without any additional charge. Further, we approached our bankers for additional sanctions on working capital facilities to manage the cash crisis with competitive interest rates. We also initiated many counter measures to reduce the fixed costs. In some areas we completely cut down the cost, which resulted in, the company could achieve the highest profit since inception.”
Such skill and resilience explain the honours bestowed upon Jayaprakash. The multi-award winner has recently been conferred by Franklin Templeton India, an award for being a CFO Dynamic Team Leader of the year.
Furthermore, he has been CFO Roll of Honour for three consecutive years 2019, 2020 & 2021, bagged CFO of the year, and is named under 10 Most Inspiring CFO and Indian Achievers’ Award for CFO of the year 2021.
Despite having trained many professionals, he remains humble and believes in trusting his team completely but not blindly. Providing them with ample space to approach him directly and allowing them to complete the task within the stipulated time is one of his strengths. “No one is perfect in the world and mistakes make a man perfect. I also make many mistakes. Realizing these mistakes at the earliest is an opportunity to learn and will make us better. I am always pleased to share my experience and learning from my mistakes with my team.” adds the CFO.
Nothing is permanent unless you identify the problem and take the action to correct it. Jayaprakash motivates fellow professionals with his empowering words, “Win or lose, it doesn’t matter, if you win, you are winner, if you lose, you just missed but still, you are the First runner-up. Trying is better than regret.”
