AbuZar Shaikh: Combining professional knowledge, leadership, creativity and meaningful work

AbuZar Shaikh’s journey has never been limited to a single identity. A Chartered Accountancy student, sportsperson, leader, editor and creative thinker, he has continued to discover different sides of himself through the opportunities and responsibilities he has taken along the way.

Sports were an early influence. Athletics, badminton and powerlifting taught him discipline, consistency, competition and how to deal with both success and failure. His association with the Western India Chartered Accountants Students Association of Ahilyanagar, Maharashtra, later brought leadership, communication and responsibility into his journey. It was through Lakshya that another side of his personality emerged, one connected with publishing, creativity and building something of his own.

For AbuZar, becoming a Chartered Accountant is an important goal, but not the boundary of his ambition. He sees the CA qualification as a professional base from which he can create, lead, experiment and contribute in different ways.

Lakshya itself began with responsibility. Three people were initially expected to manage the newsletter, but when the others gradually stepped away, AbuZar chose to take ownership rather than leave the publication unfinished. What began as an assignment eventually became a creative project that gave students a space to share articles, poetry, sketches, photography and other forms of expression.

Each edition was treated differently. Patriotic, Monochromatic Hand Drawn Sketch, Festive, Historic Victory, Defence and Rise After Fall were among the themes that gave Lakshya its distinct character. AbuZar wanted every edition to have its own personality while ensuring that every contribution had a purpose.

The Defence Edition became one of the defining chapters of his work. Inspired partly by his experience leading an audit engagement team for the Indian Army, the 192 page publication covered the Army, Navy and Air Force, Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, constitutional awareness and Ahilyanagar’s defence ecosystem. It was later recognised by the India Book of Records and World Book of Records, with the Defence Edition recognised as the world’s first defence themed newsletter.

Lakshya also crossed national boundaries when CA students from Sri Lanka contributed to the publication, leading to what AbuZar describes as the first international publication of ICAI. His interview later appeared in the 22nd edition of Fusion, the Business Annual Book of the CA Students’ Society of Sri Lanka, where he became the first Indian voice featured in the publication.

For AbuZar, entrepreneurship is less about starting a company and more about taking an idea or responsibility seriously enough to build something from it. His next chapter is centred on becoming a Chartered Accountant while bringing together professional knowledge, leadership, creativity, entrepreneurship and meaningful work.

“I want to keep becoming better, keep creating, and never allow the circumstances of your beginning to decide the scale of your ambition.”