Over the last 4 years, Saturday at Wealth Forum mean the day you go back to school - to Saturday School - our joint knowledge platform with Birla Sun Life AMC and its Nipun initiative. Saturday 2nd July 2016 was however a very special Saturday School session. This photo feature captures the highlights of this very special Saturday School session.

K S Rao, Head of Investor Education and Distributor Development at Birla Sun Life AMC opened the session with his inimitable quips, wit, acronyms and insights.....

.... Which the distinguished gathering - participants of the 7th annuall Wealth Forum Platinum Circle Advisors Conference - thoroughly enjoyed

BSL AMC and Wealth Forum present the Oracle Awards 2016

Vijay Venkatram, Wealth Forum, gave a quick curtain raiser to the concept of the Oracle Awards.

Oracle is an apt way to describe individuals whose words of wisdom are followed by a community, for greater benefit. In the financial world, the most commonly used phrase for Warren Buffett is the "Oracle of Omaha" - which signifies a learned individual who shows the way to successful investing. For our IFA community, their oracles would be fellow IFAs who impart knowledge and insights to the rest, to enable them to scale higher and serve investors better.

Our IFA Oracle from Kolkata

Our first Oracle is a successful IFA from Kolkata who first made his advisory business run independent of him, and then began travelling across the country, for upto 100 days a year, motivating and training small IFAs in every part of the country, with simple, easy to understand and easy to implement steps to build sustainable business models and serve clients well. He has, in the last 3 years, touched the lives of over 10,000 IFAs across the country. And if that was not enough, he has also written a couple of books aimed at IFAs, guiding them onto the path of building sustainable businesses. More recently, he commenced a series of short videos - called the Masterstroke series - where he shares one simple practice management idea per video in just 2 minutes. Perhaps the most telling comment that demonstrates the impact of his training and motivation is what he often hears from numerous small IFAs across the country: "Sir, I have now chosen to remain in this profession only because of you".

IFA Oracle from Kolkata: Brijesh Dalmia, Dalmia Advisory. Brijesh receives the award from KS Rao and Kishore Chamaria, Head of Business Development, BSL AMC

A short and sweet acceptance speech from Brijesh

IFA Oracle from Gurgaon

Our second oracle is from Gurgaon and was initially seen as a fixed income expert, which is why we gave him a name that reflected both his personality and his area of expertise. He has over the years demonstrated that his repertoire far exceeds the narrow confines of the world of bonds, and he is now seen as an expert in providing investment strategies for diverse client segments. This expertise in creating solutions has now made him one of the most sought after trainers and coaches in the financial advisory space in the country, and he too, like our first Oracle, now zips across the country, providing clear direction to IFAs on how to tangibly add value to clients. He has written a couple of books - aimed at advisors as well as investors. His logical and data-based approach to finding solutions where most see confusion is what makes him an Oracle for the IFA community.

IFA Oracle from Gurgaon: Sunil Jhaveri, MSJ Capital, Gurgaon (Mister Bond)

Mister Bond gets a touch emotional during his acceptance speech, reminiscing how he had to change course completely with the advent of direct plans that effectively shut down his corporate MF consultancy business, and how he reinvented himself to achieve today, a lot more success and recognition than in his previous avatar

Words of wisdom from the Oracle of Indian markets: Mahesh Patil, Co-Head Equities, BSL AMC. Mahesh gave the participants fascinating insights into the journey from information to insights. He traced this journey in the fund management world as also in the advisory world, and left the audience with a lot to chew on in terms of how each one of us needs to make this journey a success, in order to remain relevant in today's changed world.

The grand finale of this very special Saturday School session was the GrandMaster Saturday Quiz 2016.

Each month, Saturday School conducts Saturday Quiz online, which sees a lot of competition and advisor interest. The first 5 all correct answers are given Flipkart vouchers, after every Saturday Quiz.

The online Saturday Quiz came alive on Saturday 2nd July, when 4 of the winners of Saturday Quiz locked horns in a live quiz to vie for the title of GrandMaster.

The four contestants (L-R): Nandakumar Varier from Kotakkal, Roopakala KN from Bangalore, Harshvardhan Bhusari from Pune and Amit Luharuka from Bharuch.

The audience for Saturday School's GrandMasters Quiz: over 270 of India's leading IFAs from 55 cities across the country.

QuizMasters for this live quiz were K S Rao and Kishore Chamaria of BSL AMC.

K S Rao livened up the questions in his usual energetic style

Kishore Chamaria engages the distinguished audience, who successfully gave answers to some tricky questions that foxed our four contestants. When you have over 270 great minds in the audience, you are sure to get right answers even to the trickiest questions!

Amit Luharuka from Bharuch was a picture of confidence, hitting the buzzer ahead of other contestants, and getting most of his answers bang on!

Amit Luharuka from Bharuch emerges the undisputed winner - the GrandMaster of Saturday Quiz, 2016!

A final word from Kishore Chamaria, Head of Business Development, BSL AMC - words of support and encouragement for the IFA fraternity and a pledge to work even closer with IFAs going forward.

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