Hi, I am Ayush Verma and I am currently working as a Financial Risk Management consultant at Avantage Reply in London, UK. 🇬🇧
I started working in Reply in September of 2018 and before that, I was a Reply student ambassador in my previous universities. I have studied Master’s in Data Science from the King’s College London and I have completed Bachelor’s in Computer Science from the Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) from where I got associated with Reply.
Hi Ayush, thank you for joining us today! How did you get to know Reply?
I still vividly remember that it was a late October evening and I was working late in the Computer science lab working on my assignments when I saw leaflets of Reply student around my desk. In November of 2016, Reply was organizing the Student Tech Clash (‘STC’) in QMUL, which is a Europe-wide team-based student competition.
As it was a team event, I asked my friends Giorgi and Ray to form a team. On the day of the competition, we all went to the venue earlier and got our newly formed team registered. The challenge that year was to come up with a business plan for effectively using Virtual Reality (‘VR’) in an ever-increasing technology-focused environment.
The competition was day long and was full of fun-filled exercises.
At the end of the day, we presented our idea of revolutionising the education system using VR and how it can increase the likeliness of tough and uninteresting subjects, increase student-teacher interaction and improve the whole learning experience by creating them interesting and ‘learn with fun’.
We envisioned of creating a VR platform where participating colleges, universities and businesses can share their VR content in an economically sustainable way which could help students understand difficult concepts easily while also properly incentivizing the content creators.
Overall, the competition was quite challenging as there were more than 900 students from several European universities but our team was lucky to be crowned as the European case study winners. 🏆 Our university was awarded an Oculus VR set and individually we were awarded a Fitbit watches and an opportunity to become Reply ambassadors. Since then, I have been an active Reply student ambassador.
What were your activities as a Reply ambassador?
After becoming the Reply student ambassador, my number 1️ priority was to improve the Reply’s brand awareness in my university. I helped the Reply’s social network team in my university with logistics in hosting different events and in spreading the word about different Reply initiatives through different online and offline channels by writing articles on behalf of ReplyULabs.
I also participated and brainstormed at ambassador sessions with other Reply student ambassadors at from different countries to further improve the Reply’s different university connect programs.
What did you enjoy more of being a Reply Ambassador?
Getting invited for Reply’s internal events such as Labcamps and Bootcamps was no doubt the best perk of being the Reply ambassador. I was able to attend several Labcamps and Bootcamps which are as always quite informative and at the same time really fun to attend. These events gave me an opportunity to come to Reply offices and learn directly from the leading subject matter experts.
Also, I greatly enjoyed interacting with different Reply ambassadors in Ambassador sessions. This allowed me to learn and share best practices from others across the world.
For this December, I have put forward myself as a trainer for a Labcamp in London where I will share my knowledge and experience with fellow Replyers and Ambassadors.
Tell us more regarding the start of your career at Reply!
Being a Reply Ambassador my application was fast-tracked in different Reply companies and in September of 2019 after finishing my Master’s from King’s, I was able to join Avantage Reply. Avantage is a leading Pan European financial consulting arm of the Reply group with offices in the UK, France, BeNeLux, Italy and Germany.
The transition from an Ambassador to a Replyer was extremely smooth as I had the help and support from several Replyers. I believe this transition was indeed a great learning curve for me
Since joining Avantage, I have worked on several different projects and I have learnt a lot from my teammates at Avantage. I have also represented Reply at career fairs in King’s College, City University and Imperial College with our Technology recruiters Giuseppe and Eike. So far, I believe it has been a great start to my career at Reply.
You also proposed yourself as a speaker at the Reply Xchange. How was your experience?
I had a wonderful experience as being one of the speakers for the Xchange 2019 which was held in London and I am deeply grateful for this great responsibility and honour. The atmosphere there was amazing and I have great memories from this year’s Xchange.
During the Xchange 2019, I presented my ideas of using Automated Machine learning techniques in the Financial landscape. Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence and Automation are increasingly becoming important in our lives and I believe that these technological advancements have the potential to truly revolutionize the Financial services industry that we know of today.
For presenting in the Xchange this year, a lot of hard work and planning went into it but I always had the help and support from my team at Avantage Reply especially from Dean and Roxana who helped me at different stages of preparation.
Why a student should join Reply in one line?
You aren’t joining another company but will become a part of the Reply family. 👫 Join Reply and experience it for yourself!
