How Namrata Built a Successful Career in a Wealth Management Firm

I never imagined that a commerce degree from NMKRV College in Bengaluru would one day lead me to a role where I get to build something from the ground up. But here I am, heading operations at Unnathi Wealth, a wealth management firm that is helping over 300 families secure their financial futures.

And if I am being honest, the journey to this point was anything but a straight line. It was fifteen years of figuring things out, one workplace at a time, and learning that the skills you pick up along the way have a way of adding up when you least expect them.

A Bengaluru Girl Who Took the Long Route

I was born and raised in Bengaluru, the city that somehow manages to feel like both a village and a metropolis at the same time. Growing up here gave me a certain kind of groundedness. Commerce was my stream, and NMKRV College was where I spent some of the most formative years of my life.

I did not know then that understanding balance sheets and business fundamentals would one day become the backbone of everything I do professionally. After graduating, I stepped into the corporate world and spent close to fifteen years navigating it. My time at HCL gave me my first real taste of how large organisations work.

The scale, the processes, the pace. Then came IIM Bengaluru, which was a completely different experience. Working at one of India’s most respected institutions taught me the value of structure, precision, and building systems that actually hold up under pressure. Both of these experiences shaped me in ways that I only fully understood much later.

What Fifteen Years in the Corporate World Taught Me About Building Real Systems

People often assume that operations is a behind-the-scenes role. That the real action happens somewhere else. I used to hear that assumption a lot, and I always found it a little amusing. The truth is, operations is where everything either works or falls apart. It does not matter how strong your vision is or how good your team is if the processes underneath are shaky.

I learned that the hard way, and then I learned how to fix it. By the time I joined Unnathi Wealth, I had seen enough organisations to know what good operations look like and, more importantly, what bad ones cost. At Unnathi Wealth, I was allowed to build the operational framework from scratch. That is the kind of challenge that either intimidates you or energises you.

For me, it was the latter. Unnathi Wealth was founded by Praveen H K with a clear intent: to help clients build, preserve, and transfer wealth with clarity and confidence. The firm offers personalised advisory solutions across investment planning, tax planning, retirement planning, succession planning, and wealth protection.

When I came on board, my job was to create the systems and processes that would allow all of that to actually happen smoothly, at scale, for over 300 families.

What It Means to Head Operations at a Wealth Management Firm

Building Processes That Actually Serve People

Wealth management is an intensely personal business. The families that come to Unnathi Wealth are not just looking for returns. They are looking for someone they can trust with their life’s work, their children’s futures, and their retirement years. That level of trust demands a certain kind of operational backbone.

My role is to make sure that every touchpoint in a client’s journey with us is smooth, reliable, and dignified. That means building workflows that are clear enough that nothing falls through the cracks, but flexible enough to adapt to each family’s unique situation. It sounds straightforward when you say it like that. The reality of doing it is where things get interesting.

I draw on everything from my HCL days, where I learned how enterprise-scale processes work, to my time at IIM Bengaluru, where precision and accountability were non-negotiable. Both have been incredibly useful at Unnathi Wealth, even though the context is completely different. A boutique wealth management firm is not a tech giant or an academic institution.

But the principles of good operations, clarity, consistency, and accountability, travel across every industry.

Life Beyond Work: Cooking and Curiosity

Outside the office, you will find me in the kitchen or planning my next trip. Cooking is the thing I turn to when I need to reset. There is something about the process of taking raw ingredients and turning them into something that brings people together that I find genuinely satisfying. It is also, in some ways, not unlike operations. You need the right inputs, the right sequence, and a little patience.

Travel is the other thing that keeps me curious. Bengaluru is home, but I love what happens to your perspective when you step out of what is familiar. New places teach you things that no textbook or training program can.

What I Want Other Women to Know

If I could say one thing to a woman who is in the middle of a long career and wondering if the dots will ever connect, it would be this: they will, but usually not in the order you expected. My fifteen years did not always feel like they were building toward something. Some of it felt like detours. But every role taught me something I am using right now, today, at Unnathi Wealth.

The operations skills I built at HCL, the precision culture I absorbed at IIM Bengaluru, and the patience I had to develop along the way. All of it feeds into the work I do now. No experience is wasted if you are paying attention.

Bengaluru gave me my roots. Commerce gave me my foundation. And fifteen years in the corporate world gave me the tools to build something I am genuinely proud of.

Namrata heads Operations at Unnathi Wealth, a Bengaluru-based wealth management firm helping over 300 families build and protect their financial legacies. To know more about Unnathi Wealth, visit their team at unnathiwealth.com.

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