Hailing from a military background, Abhishek Singh, IT Head at CheapFlightFares, travelled a lot right from his childhood and student life. With his father being posted to different parts of the country, Singh was exposed to the varied cultures and cuisines of the country from a young age, being raised in cities like Lucknow, Delhi, and Jaipur throughout his childhood even though much of the travel that happened was not leisure, but much more of following his family.
Like many in his age, Singh was also passionate about cricket. With his father and many other family members serving in the army, he was also quite interested in defense news from a young age.
After finishing his 12th examinations, Singh aimed to get into the defense, coming from a similar background, but later realized that this was not in his best interests, so he tried his hand in academics again with a degree in B.Sc. from Meerut University.
He again realized he was not interested in the subjects, so he changed his major to BBA. Considering himself to be an average student, Singh found his peace with education when he discovered his passion for management and organizing after participating in various extracurricular activities during his college time.
After leaving college, he found his first job at Alliance Technology in Jaipur, Rajasthan where he worked on networking and installing leased lines, which was an expensive piece of technology at that time and exposed him to important skills like vendor & project management. Later, in search of better opportunities, Singh shifted to Delhi where he explored a lot of different career paths by getting into facility management, project management, software development, security, and such.
“You cannot do anything without having good mentors, having good colleagues around, seniors and juniors alike,” Singh spoke on how he managed to survive throughout his career with all the ups-and-downs that he faced. “There have been good people around. They have invested their time in me and shown their confidence in me and I have tried to return the favours with the best of my abilities.”
The mentors that he has had in his career have helped him understand the importance of honesty and diligence to advance, not just in his career, but also in life. Treating his colleagues, juniors or seniors, peers, and even the stakeholders with respect is also something that he learned from his mentors.
With a career that spans 21 years, Singh has seen his fair share of challenges and achievements that has taught him a lot. When asked about one such achievement, in particular, he stated, “My point of view is very different. So the biggest achievement is whenever people feel that your advice is true, sweet or not.” He believes that apart from specific incidents or events, there is no bigger achievement in your career than people around you putting their trust in you.
It can get difficult to keep in touch with the ever-changing nature & the growing trends of the IT industry, but Singh manages to keep up with it by constantly reading and learning. “So there should not be a day that passes by where you do not read about the industry, where you do not read about what you are doing and see where the industry is going, the day you stop doing that is the day you stop learning and start becoming arrogant.”
Emerging from failures
A vast career such as his is not devoid of challenges and bad moments, the ones Singh were not specific incidents wherein a particular migration or a particular server failed but rather the moments when he could not deliver on the promise made. Setbacks like these can be difficult to deal with, but the only way he believes to tackle this issue would be to accept the failure and move on from it.
“One of my major migrations failed because I couldn’t predict a particular resource was required to be present and we had to face a major downtime, which cost us a lot at that point of time,” Singh stated on his challenges and how he dealt with them, “but accepting that happened and turning from it will keep a person moving.”
Taking a break in moments of crisis is quite important and has helped Singh gather himself and face the problem with a level head. “Take a step back, analyze, and then reattach.”
Traveling and cooking is something that, personally, helps Singh take his mind off the stress of the job when spending time with his family of wife and kids. He also likes to meet his old friends from his school & college days, so he does not lose track of who he is beyond his professional aura.
One of his favorite activities to do during his family time is food walks where he takes a trip down famous localities known for their exquisite cuisines. “So I’ll say…Lucknow is my favorite and probably, my hometown, Jaipur,” he states on the ideal location for one of his food walks.
Going beyond IT
When asked about his future plans after the devastating year behind us, Singh shared his desire to break his monotony of working in IT and discovering different leadership positions such as in marketing or operations that would help him diversify his knowledge and learn more.
“So the motto of my life is being happy, that is the motto of life. But the aim is to learn more, always to learn more. Whether it is in terms of technology or whether it is in terms of family. So learn more and honesty are the two basic mantras that I have stuck by, sticking by, and hope that I’ll be able to abide by these two mantras.”
