HBS Exceptional Athlete Awards: Q&A with Parth Jindal

Last week, Delia Zanoschi and Tum Preugpaibul (RCs) announced the winners of the inaugural HBS exceptional athlete awards, an initiative they started this year to recognize the best athletes at HBS. This week, Delia and Tum interviewed HBS Class of 2016 squash winner Parth Jindal in a compelling Q&A.

PARTH JINDAL: SQUASH

SECTION G, MUMBAI, INDIA How did you start? My family manufactures steel in India. At one of our factories that is located outside of Mumbai my father built a squash court. As the area was remote, he built the court in order to have something to do in the evenings. This was also a great way to meet his employees outside the work environment. He hired a coach and squash became very popular among children there. We then built another 3 squash courts and it became the Jindal Squash Academy (JSA). Over the years JSA has produced 5 junior national champions at squash. This academy continues to be one of the best junior squash academies in the country and has over 120 children training daily. My dad always encouraged me to play. Sport is a great enabler. When you are on the court, the only thing that matters is how you play squash and not your economic background.