KE Lead Member, Stan Dsouza commenced the evening with the Prayer followed by the essential induction of 14 new members to the KE family facilitated by Director Memberships, Leena Lobo.

Next, outgoing KE President, Claudius Pereira, delivered one of his characteristic stories that invited introspection. Through a simple anecdote, Claudius gave credit to his Board of Directors for managing the many new benchmarks in the KE journey during his term. The anecdote left us with an inspiring theme that encapsulated his journey piloting KE through wins and challenges with the support of a fabulous crew. In his closing words, Claudius defined KE by saying that like flowers did not give fragrance to themselves, life is even better when you make others happy with your gifts and talents.

The KE journey over the past year also materialized into a newsletter that was unveiled by our Chief Guest, Mr. Santosh Hegde, after a brief introduction by outgoing Director Marketing & Sponsorship, Sunil D’Sa. The elegantly designed newsletter is packed with stories, learning and inspiration.

The next segment of the evening, the discharge of the outgoing board and the installation of the new Board of Directors was overseen by Former KE President & Lead Member, Robinson Dsouza. After a few moments of cognizance of the many milestones achieved by the outgoing Board under Claudius’ leadership, Robinson installed the new Board of Directors with best wishes for serving for the next two years. Pramod Dsouza (KE President), Vijay Prakash Lobo (Director Finance), Eugene Mathias (Director Marketing & Sponsorship), and Sunil Attavar (Director Mentoring).

After taking the oath of service, the new KE President, Pramod Dsouza, delivered his acceptance speech beginning with gratitude to the founders of KE, FKCA and Founding Members, and presented a quick gist of the achievements and collective efforts of KE. He shared that this term would focus on Growth and Collaboration, and crystallized the idea with ‘KE is a GIFT’ – elaborating on

G – Growth with Humility I – Inspiration F – Extended Family T – Time

In closing comments, Pramod urged members to nourish our KE network by surrounding ourselves with peers who influenced our thinking, growth, and potential – Growth-mindset people!

Mr. N. Santosh Hegde established his humble command of the dais for the integral segment of the evening with an introductory statement that people today did not value honesty and were afflicted by a disease called, ‘Greed.’ The audience were spellbound with every word of wisdom

that he shared about the acceptance and normalization of corruption and the defunct systems with examples from lived experience – stories of despair and disbelief. However, he didn’t just focus on the problem but also shared with us the key human values to overcome Greed – Contentment, and Humanism. He insisted that social change is only possible if we bring these two values to society by inculcating them in our children and ourselves – not by force, but by choice. Mr. Hegde’s words truly left a lasting mark on everyone present – one that established without a doubt that we were in the presence of a luminary dedicated to justice, integrity, and service to the nation.

As the evening drew to a close, Reshma Lobo and Jyothi Menezes shared their experience with the KE network from the perspective of new Members. They shared how KE had quickly turned into their go-to for all queries, receiving proactive support, and an opportunity to give back to KE quite early in their membership. Our affable emcee of the evening, Anoop Sequeira, added to those points with his favorite quote, ‘Ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find.’ and take the time to volunteer for visibility and for the opportunity to share what you do!

In closing, this very dignified Members Meet, was a testament to the potency of transitions – the easy flow of learnings and challenges from one set of hands to the next – always with promise of support whenever we need it. We would like to take this opportunity to express our gratitude to the outgoing Board of Directors (Claudius Pereira, Peter Anil Rego, Sunil D’Sa) for their tremendous energy and vision for a brilliant term and extend our solidarity and support to the newly installed Board of Directors for many more milestones and successes!