Rising Star: Karina Mehta, Senior Executive, Forbes India, Ad Sales

An MBA in marketing, Karina Mehta always thought that she would find herself in the world of marketing. But it so happened that after completing her MBA, Mehta’s CV was sent to DNA and she got selected for the role of a management trainee.

“In my time at DNA, I got to learn a lot. I was handling healthcare and infrastructure industry there and some of my big clients included Hinduja Hospital, Alma Medical, Cipla and Bristol-Myers Squibb. It was very challenging working with pharma companies because pharma companies are not allowed to advertise directly about their products and so I had to think of alternative ways for them to partner with us. The experience really taught me to think out of the box.”

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After DNA, she moved on to Forbes India. As Senior Executive in the Ad Sales department of the organisation, Mehta has been a consistent performer. She was awarded Sales Champion of Q1 and Q2 in 2017-18 as she overachieved her targets in both quarters by 203% and 138.5%, respectively.

“I have been with Forbes for two years now and this has been the fastest two years of my life. It is a very different experience from my time at DNA because here I am doing a lot of things on my own. Here I have a lot more freedom. It has been challenging no doubt, but I have put in a lot of hard work and have over-achieved my targets in multiple quarters. Another thing about Forbes is that the organisation has always noticed and rewarded my hard work and that has pushed me to do better.”

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Speaking about one of the challenges that she faced during her time at Forbes, Mehta said, “I had over-achieved my targets for last year and I was very nervous about this year because I wanted to perform just as well or even better this year. But unfortunately, one of our biggest advertisers wasn’t active because of some unavoidable circumstances. But I managed to get another client who was equally as big as the previous client. That was a very challenging task.”

Sales is notorious for being a very stressful profession and while Mehta doesn’t dispute that fact, she also finds the field to be very dynamic.

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“There is a lot of stress, I am not going to deny that but it is also a very dynamic profession. One gets to do a lot of different things and meet a lot of different people on the job. When you meet people from a certain industry, you get to learn a lot about that particular industry.”

According to Mehta, her biggest strength is the fact that she is very success-oriented and once she puts her mind to something she ensures that the job gets done.

Mehta believes that she is impatient by nature and would want to work on being more patient.

And where would she be if not sales?

“I never thought that I would be doing what I am doing now. I always thought that I would end up in marketing but I do believe that right now, I am where I should have been.”

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