Inspiring words from the guest speaker of the morning, a themed drawing competition and a pictorial game of housie marked the Administrative Professionals’ Day organized by the Indian Association of Secretaries and Administrative Professionals (IASAP) on April 22, 2023 at Downtown (banquet hall), Bombay.
After a welcome by president Kashmira Gamadia, speaker Dr Adil Malia, Bombay Parsi Punchayet trustee and chief executive officer of management consultancy organization, The Firm, recited Urdu shayari to express his views to those assembled. Among the management nuggets he delivered were: "Situations will change if one changes the way of one’s thinking…Don’t keep changing boats but keep adjusting your sails… Don’t jump from ship to ship but adjust and change your way of thinking according to the need of the hour… We just have to prepare ourselves to face the changes and go with the flow…If you cannot adapt to the changes you cannot succeed in life.”
Moti Vazifdar, Dr Adil Malia, Kashmira Gamadia (3rd, 4th, 5th from l) with past presidents of IASAP
Making his speech relevant to the 140 administrative professionals present at Downtown, Malia said, "In the corporate world, a person’s efficiency is measured by intelligence quotient… How one perceives what is happening in the environment and the ability to assimilate this; emotional quotient determines how well one works with different emotions of persons one comes into contact with; spirituality quotient synchronizes the values of the organization with the individuals’ for which you need to have your spiritual values in place; adversity quotient determines the ability to deal with unfavorable circumstances; transformational quotient measures how well one adapts to changing circumstances.”
Malia was introduced by past president and editor of their newsletter, Moti Vazifdar, who sent a note on the event to Parsiana. The latest issue of the newsletter was released by the duo.
Shernaz Kapadia, Flavy D’Souza and Sharon Lobo were adjudged winners of the drawing competition on the theme of "Save our earth.” Meher Panthaki was awarded a consolation prize. Designed by Lassie Gonsalves, the housie involved pictorial representations of items depicting festivals that coincided on the day of the event — Earth Day, Ramzan Eid and Akshaya Tritiya. Past president Veera Mundroina proposed a vote of thanks.
Established in Bombay in 1970 by the late Homai Mehta with her husband Homi ("later some other ladies were roped in”) IASAP has six chapters in Delhi, Hyderabad, Calcutta, Poona, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal. The governing council members besides Gamadia are Vijayalaxmi Amin, Binaifer Daruwala, Rashna Ardesher, Joan Lobo and Hanisha Vazirani. The Association celebrated its golden jubilee belatedly in 2022 on account of the pandemic (see "Homai Mehta remembered,” Events and Personalities, Parsiana, November 7-20, 2022).