IIMB Alumni Magazine Summer 2015

PRASHANT JAIN

INDIA’s

FUND MANAGERBEST

Ranjini Sivaswamy Sushma Ram Aparna Sanjay Rohini Ramegowda

Dear Alumni,

IIMB celebrated its 40th Convocation this year, which means that we have 40 batches of alumni. We are getting stronger as a community every year. At this point in time, as alumni, we have a great opportunity in front of us to engage and participate in various initiatives of IIMB.

Our Alumni Community needs to grow from strength to strength and the crux of it lies in our alumni connect. We need to get connected with all our alumni – across batches, across years. For this, we require our alumni database to be populated and updated. Help us get in touch with alumni across the world - we cannot afford to miss anyone!

The Institute is looking for mentors – just the PGP course needs over 400 mentors. We look forward to you coming back to the campus as mentors of our students. Write to us and volunteer to become a mentor.

The IIMB Alumni Magazine - the voice of our alumni community – needs you to participate, share and write to take this Magazine to greater heights. Become alumni journalists, photographers, interviewers, editors –

we can together create a world class Magazine.

A big change that happened in the IIMB Alumni Office is that Rakesh Godhwani PGSEM 04, moved out of his role as Head Alumni Relations. Rakesh joined the alumni office in 2008 and has spent the last 7 years in building the Alumni Office, adding significant value, so much so, that he became been the face of the Alumni Office during his tenure. Rakesh has contributed immensely to building networks with the Alumni and also setting up robust processes. He has also weaved an efficient team of colleagues, which will enable and facilitate the Alumni Office to grow effectively in the future. Rakesh is moving on to chase his dreams in his field of education and teaching and will continue to be an Adjunct Faculty of Communication at IIMB. We look forward to his continued association with IIMB and wish him all the best in his future endeavours.

We bring you this issue of the Alumni Magazine with interesting and enriching articles. We thank all the alumni contributors who helped us in bringing out this issue. Read, enjoy and tell us how you like the Magazine.

Message from theCHAIRPERSON

Prof. Vasanthi Srinivasan FPM 96 Chairperson, IIMB Alumni Affairs

Editorial Committee:

Prof. Vasanthi Srinivasan Chairperson, IIMB Alumni Relations

Ranjini Sivaswamy Editor

Editorial Team:

Rakesh Godhwani Ranjini Sivaswamy Aparna Sanjay Arnav Pandya PGP 01 Sushma Ram Rohini Ramegowda Shyama Bijesh - Designer

Bannerghatta Road, Bangalore 560 076, INDIATel: +91-80-2699 3463, Fax: +91-80-2658 4050Email: [email protected]: www.iimbaa.org

Copyright, 2015. Indian Institute of Management Bangalore. All rights reserved. No part of this magazine can be reproduced either in part or full without IIMB’s prior written permission.

For private circulation only

Design & Production: www.cicadamedia.com

Cover Story

Make in India

What’s Up @ IIMB

Adventure Streak Anusmaran Class Notes#wave

Lens & Living

Conversation

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Con

tent

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t’ll be no less than a surprise if the topic of Make in India escaped

your lunch table and coffee conversations. Since the time the campaign got announced by the Prime Minister, Mr.Narendra Modi, it has reverberated its way through the minds of millions. The country is abuzz with analysis, projections, optimisms and criticisms. Will it work, will it be able to give jobs to millions, will it become the economic

I equalizer that India is craving for – and many more questions are awaiting answers.

Arguably the most powerful Government campaign in recent years, Make in India is pitched to propel India’s economic growth. Economists and industrialists agree that India cannot bank on any other industry other than manufacturing to achieve the kind of exponential growth that our population demands.

IIMB ALUMNI MAGAZINE SUMMER 20154

Making it work By ranjini SivaSwaMy

Make in India

It’s been a good two decades that Nityanand Shenoy PGP 87 has been working in the manufacturing sector. When liberalization came through, there was a massive

wave of change. Things started to pick up but the pace fell short. “We could have achieved much more”, says Nityanand. Today, he says, “My son will laugh at me if I ask him to join manufacturing.” Who will choose to work in the harsh conditions of factory floors, for lower salaries, grappling with administrative torpors, travelling to the outskirts of cities – his son would ask. Manufacturing has been suffering the ills of being a non-glamourous industry, failing to attract the crème de la crème of India’s talent. Now that the Make in India project has been able to create one of the biggest branding and marketing campaigns that has brought the highlight back to manufacturing, the way the industry has been perceived could see some change. Of course, the realities on the ground should fall in line as well.

Will the Make in India project be able to capture the imagination of the country?

IBut there are huge roadblocks, speed-breakers and pot holes on the way. What would it take to overcome these? What are the struggles, what should change and what are the caveats? We bring you a perspective from the ground – from our alumni, insiders in the Manufacturing industry. Also, we have Prof. Mahadevan analyzing this significant project.Let’s get a deeper perspective on what it will take to make Make in India work.

MAKE IN INDIA

SUMMER 2015 IIMB ALUMNI MAGAZINE 5

nityanand Shenoy PgP 87

the opportunitylies with the sMes

If Make in India creates a buzz only in Tier I

companies and does not reach the SMEs, the

scale and impact of the project would be limited

to a much smaller spectrum.

For Nityanand, who serves as President & Managing Director at PRS-Permacel, the answer is a yes, “if we leverage the opportunity and make the most of Make in India, our Manufacturing sector will grow. But the crux of the opportunity lies with the Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs).”

The Manufacturing sector in India contributes to just 15% of our GDP even though the opportunities for employment and wealth generation are the maximum in this sector. The SME sector in the manufacturing segment employs over 70% of the workforce and is thus one of the strongest pillars of our economy. The opportunity of Make in India is aimed at taking the share of the manufacturing sector in India from 15% to 25%. Nityanand totally believes that this opportunity will have to be driven by the SME sector, taking into account - its ability to create millions of jobs, especially in absorbing non-skilled labour; its potential to create an impact on local economies; and its possibility to scale. He says, “If Make in India creates a buzz only in Tier I companies and does not reach the SMEs, the scale and impact of the project would be limited to a much smaller spectrum.”

Nityanand, though, has experienced first-hand how SMEs are struggling to survive and scale owing to largely dysfunctional infrastructure, outdated labour laws and credit/capital deficit. Talking about labour laws, he shares a real scenario – “The labour laws state that if your workforce comprises 30 or more number of women, the factory should provide an in-house crèche. For a low income SME, this is a cost burden. Fearing this cost, most people stay away from hiring more women, which clearly amounts to social injustice. Such laws are like double-edged swords. They should be relooked at and tailored rationally to work with the ground realities.”

“Equally crippling is the credit inflexibility that SMEs face with the banks. The interest rates are as high as 14-15%, that’s a whole 8-9% higher than what manufacturing friendly countries like Germany, Japan and even China offer. And, unlike large companies, SMEs do not wield any bargaining power with the banks. Banks are wary of giving large working capital to small companies. In addition, SMEs face huge cash crunch dealing with large companies, who practice leisurely credit time of at least four months”, Nityanand says.

Nityanand Shenoy PGP 87 serves as President & Managing Director at PRS-Permacel. He worked with large companies like MICO-BOSCH and Godrej & Boyce before joining the Permacel division of Johnson & Johnson in 1990 which in 1999 was renamed as PRS Permacel when Johnson and Johnson exited this business. With over 25 years of experience in screen printing & security labelling and brand protection, he is now considered an expert in these fields.

We all talk about demographics. But how do we convert population numbers to skills and knowledge? How do we equip people to work in a dynamic environment? That will be key to

derive dividends from demographic advantages.” Arun Chandavarkar, CEO & Joint Managing Director, Biocon

@ Make in India panel @ IIMB.

Nityanand proposes that a preferential credit rate with banks by evaluating companies could greatly help SMEs come out of this cash and capital crunch. He feels that such an intervention will considerably energize the SME sector, adding more fuel and fire to the Make in India campaign.

MAKE IN INDIA


t was just a year ago that Srinivas Krishnaswamy PGP 01 and his wife Preethi Sukumaran, an alumna of IIM Kolkata, set

up their factory in a Special Economic Zone (SEZ) in Chennai. Their company, Krya, produces environment friendly, sustainable home care products. They devotedly researched to come up with unique and indigenously manufactured products with a conscious commitment to the environment. Krya’s products are among those many others that are unique to India. They are born out of our traditional knowledge and made with locally available organic raw materials. Here is a niche where no China, no Taiwan, can compete with us. Such innovations are what will make ‘Make in India’ gain an edge. Srinivas says, “We cannot and should not compete with China. The kind of products that China is producing are for China to make. India has an incredibly rich traditional knowledge. Traditional medicines, Ayurveda, our local arts and crafts – all these will by themselves fetch great market demand. We might never be able to produce a cheaper smart phone than what China produces, and like the RBI Governor, Raghuram Rajan says, the world does not need another China. Our focus should be on what we can uniquely and excellently do.”

But, for these concepts to come alive and to make a success story out of Make in India, there are many realities that need to change for entrepreneurs like Srinivas. Srinivas is a newbie in the manufacturing industry. His company falls into the Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) category and he has lived through an extremely long drawn process to set up the factory. The bureaucratic process and its attached ambiguity found him spending a whole year to set things up. The enormity of ambiguity is such that when he approached an MSME office for a

I

MAKE IN INDIA


let’s do what only we can do SrinivaS kriShnaSwaMy PgP 01

We cannot and should not compete with China. India has an incredibly rich traditional knowledge. Traditional medicines, Ayurveda, our local arts and crafts – all these will by themselves fetch great market demand. We might never be able to produce a cheaper smart phone than what China produces. Our focus should be on what we can uniquely and excellently do.

new sales tax number for a product bifurcation they had planned, none of the departments knew where he should apply. Was it in this office, or in another, or yet another, nobody knew. Clear ‘yes’ or a ‘no’, were elusive and made way to ‘maybe’ responses that left him dangling in uncertainty. There are too many departments concerned, too many licenses required and the regulatory framework is a mystery. This is the status in Tamil Nadu which is fairly industry friendly. Srinivas’ first on the wish list for Make in India is a common single window information and clearance platform

that can lift the haze that shrouds the manufacturing scene.

“My everyday drive to the factory is through a corridor dotted by many factories that are shutdown. At the SEZ that hosts us, our factory does not have a land line connection. There is a default power shut down of two hours every day and we are dependent on power backup. Manufacturing is what we need to push the economy, but don’t we have a long way to go?” asks Srinivas. For manufacturers, the most awaited critical change is the implementation of the Goods and Services Tax

(GST). “Apart from doing away with those innumerable indirect taxes, this GST will bring down the prices, ensure smooth flow of goods across the country and save us a lot of time! We definitely need to see this implemented within the next one year”, says Srinivas. Another leap that the country has to take is providing power supply. Srinivas suggest that we should have national solar policy implemented, which we do not have at this point in time. Apart from our rich natural resources, we are a sun abundant country with an edge in technology. We should be able to leverage this well enough.

MAKE IN INDIA


Make it relevant for india

“We have shifted our focus from the Indian market to global markets”, says Uma Balakrishnan

PGSEM 01, an entrepreneur whose biggest challenge has been to increase adoption of smarter IT technologies on the shop floor in Indian Manufacturing. Uma is the founder and CEO at Axcend Automation & Software Solutions, a company that provides provide software tools that bring intelligence into the manufacturing process. The innovative technologies developed at her company are well benchmarked with top notch quality levels. But, “technology products & services adoption among Indian manufacturing companies is driven more by an aspirational brand value. Even global products like pizzas and tacos have adopted to local

UMa BalakriShnan PgSeM 01Uma Balakrishnan serves as CEO

at Axcend Automation & Software

Solutions. She has over 28 years

of experience in serving the

manufacturing sector in sphere

of Plant Automaton & Industrial

IT. She started her career in

Industrial Automation with ABB

in 1987. She took-over as CEO

of a start-up company ‘Sunlux

Engineering’ in 1992 to build

the automation business of the

company. In 1995, Uma started

her first entrepreneurial venture,

‘Automation Design Center’ which

provided consulting and software

development in industrial

automation.

realities, with paneer and spice to match the Indian palate. But Indian manufacturing is still trying to directly replicate technology on shop floor from West to East. They are reluctant to adapt to local realities such as labour abundance and lower supply chain integration levels.”

Uma has been serving in the manufacturing industry for over 27 years now. She says, “It is definitely not that India is not producing world class products and services. But the decision makers in Indian companies tread carefully to be perceived as those who chose ‘fail safe options’ with global brands. Products from our company that face hesitancy in India, found greater demand and acceptance abroad” - this is a reality check for the Make in India campaign says Uma. This incline

MAKE IN INDIA


towards anything foreign-made will prove detrimental for the local economies of the country. Uma says, we need to ensure that the entry of global manufacturers will help in enabling Indian manufacturing, and their presence in the ecosystem should boost our quality & productivity. How do we achieve this?

Uma says that the answer lies in a commitment towards local production; ensuring that the local industry gets its fair share of

In all these years visiting over 500+ shop floors of MSMEs to large enterprises in India, it pains me to see that even today there are places that have either no ladies washrooms or have ones that not amenable, despite existing factory law statutes. Hopefully with all these economic development triggers, the life for women in manufacturing sector will also improve, with increased sensitivity for their basic amenities.

involvement in the process of making in India. Uma emphatically says, “India should not become another Taiwan or China. A scenario where the machines get imported, the technology gets imported, and we provide just land and labour, will kill a massive growth opportunity. The onus should be on creating impact in local economies by engaging local entrepreneurship. Make in India must support making in India and make the entire exercise relevant for India.”

Perhaps, the task of engaging local SMEs lies in the hands of industrial associations like ASSOCHAM, FICCI, CII or NASSCOM opines Uma. “The government will have limited legal binding at its end to ensure local engagement, but persuasive efforts of these associations may help in creating an overall impact”, she adds.

Uma observes that the Make in India campaign indeed has brought commendable amount of highlight on the Indian manufacturing sector. The IT industry was hogging all the limelight and the Indian back-office image had to change. She says, “Now that manufacturing will step up, we will see an increase in the demand for consumables for processing, manufacturing components and we will see growth in the allied supply chain industry. Another notable aspect will be that

skilled labour force adoption will be higher which means that upskilling and skill gap management will be the need of the hour. All we need to do is raise the bar and focus on final value creation.”

Being a woman in the manufacturing industry, Uma has an important thought to share, “In all these years visiting over 500+ shop floors of MSMEs to large enterprises in India, it pains me to see that even today there are places that have either no ladies washrooms or have ones that not amenable, despite existing factory law statutes. Hopefully with all these economic development triggers, the life for women in manufacturing sector will also improve, with increased sensitivity for their basic amenities.”

We are a population of 1.2 billion. There’s huge

opportunity here. Yet we import idols for Ganesha Chathurti and diyas for Deepavali from China.

SS Naik, Senior Vice President, Reliance Industries

@ Make in India panel @ IIMB

MAKE IN INDIA


the only thing that will Prevent US iS oUrSelveS

Chaitanya koranne PgP 87

he story of Indian manufacturing gets an added glitz and gleam from the aerospace industry – the one industry that is galloping at a growth rate of over 30% every year. Chaitanya Koranne, who

serves as the Vice President of Aequs Aerospace Machining, has seen his company grow at 50% year over year. Chaitanya unhesitatingly says that this industry is one of the most promising ones for Make in India. “The industry is on a high growth trail and will be worth $30 to $50 billion in the next five years - that’s considering the fact that the current offsets put together itself accumulates to $10 billion”, notes a very positive Chaitanya.

The government is keen on promoting the aerospace industry, considering the sheer volume of economic activity that this nascent industry can ignite. India is the ninth largest aerospace market in the world and is paced well to capture the third position by 2020. Chaitanya observes that even when the economy was facing a downturn in the last two years, the industry has recorded an unwavering

T

Invest in India, for India and

continue to push the growth.

We need vibrant efforts to

improve our productivity,

create capacities in India,

reduce oil dependency and

develop alternate energy

sources. We also need to

change the policies that are

restricting the way we work.

Now we have our currency

supporting us and the

economy is favouring growth.

With numerous things positive

and in favour of us, the only

thing that will prevent us is

ourselves.

Chaitanya Koranne serves as the Vice President of

Aequs Aerospace Machining. He has over 27 years

of experience in roles of increasing responsibility

within Operations, Manufacturing, Strategic Planning,

Acquisitions, and Supply Chain Management in the

Aerospace, Automotive, and Engineering Services sectors.

He has worked with organizations such as CRI Pumps,

Maini Precision Products, Ashok Iron Works, Core

Healthcare Limited, Link Software & Systems Ltd, and

SKF Bearing India Limited.

MAKE IN INDIA


growth rate, unlike other industries. Defense and commercial aerospace manufacturing is attracting significant investment interest from within and outside the country.

Even with the innate potential of the industry, its growth is meeting with speed-breakers at very many points. The most critical pain point is the non-availability of skilled human resources says Chaitanya. “People with the right skills - not just skilled labour but also persons across different functions with the knowledge of the systems, processes, technical knowledge for development and quality standards - are becoming impossible to find. How long can we afford to employ retired personnel from HAL like organizations?”, asks Chaitanya. Skill gap is a major concern especially when we are looking at high end manufacturing technology. The task of up-skilling is no less than herculean but its implication is decisive in the success of Make in India.

Another deterrent to aerospace growth is the capital cost says Chaitanya, reiterating the thoughts of Nityanand Shenoy. Companies like Chaitanya’s that have an export production as high as 80 – 100%,

have to compete with companies from developed countries in the international market. India has a market edge because of the cost advantage that it provides but high interest rates are put pressure on this margin. Any decline of cost advantage will erode our business opportunities to other countries that offer lower costs. Chaitanya also feels that if the interest rates are not slashed from a burdening 14%, India will also see many players moving out of the country. And the reverse holds good too - if the interest scenario becomes favorable, it will for sure attract more investment.

Talking about investments, Chaitanya says India is attracting lot many companies with its investment opportunities. India being a huge domestic market, FDI will flow in. He though cautions against Make in India favouring the FDI investors and discriminating against the Indian investors.

To make Make in India work, here are Chaitanya’s concluding thoughts - “Invest in India, for India and continue to push the growth. We need vibrant efforts to improve our productivity, create capacities in India, reduce oil dependency and

7 things that should change for Make india’s success

infrastructure

labour laws

goods and services tax

land acquisition

energy supply

skill gap

interest rates

The key issue is that our focus of industry has to move away from just what we will produce to what technologies are going to create the

future products. To invest our human resources and or R&D services in those technologies in a focused manner.

Ananth Agastya PGP 81, Executive Director, HAL Management Academy, @ Make in India panel @ IIMB.

develop alternate energy sources. We also need to change the policies that are restricting the way we work. Now we have our currency supporting us and the economy is favouring growth. With numerous things positive and in favour of us, the only thing that will prevent us is ourselves.”

MAKE IN INDIA


the Make in india CaMPaign: dreaM to reality

he announcement of the “Make in India” campaign by Prime

Minister Narendra Modi could have been timed no better than now. The western economies are suffering from problems of huge legacy cost burden making them unattractive from a cost of manufacturing perspective. Furthermore, the economies are either stagnant or experience a negative growth on account of a huge installed base of products and services. If there are already about 600 cars per 1000 population how many more cars can one sell? In contrast, the Asian economies such as Indian and China have promised huge growth opportunities. For instance, a study estimated that in India there are about 24 cars per 1000 population. It is another aspect of reality that even with such low proportion of cars for the population, it is almost impossible to park the car in a shopping area in a metro and do shopping. Moreover, the expertise and technology available in countries such as India to manufacture products at a fraction of the cost of the western counterpart makes the case even attractive.

All these clearly point to the fact that Make in India campaign is well timed and can usher in huge growth and wealth creation opportunities for the Indian society. There are estimates which suggest that a well-managed “Make in India” campaign could

T dwarf the IT/ITES growth in the country and open a new trajectory for the business establishments in the country. Moreover, global competitive ratings point to an availability of a large pool of engineering and management graduates in India, which strengthens the case. Therefore the entire attention must be diverted towards the ground realities and executional challenges than speculating if this is a viable idea.

Personally, it appears to me that converting the “Make in India” campaign from a dream to reality is the biggest question that we need to worry about. Well-meaning business leaders, executives and management consultants need to think about this intensely and carefully. There are several reasons for this. Let me explain this in some detail.

On January 1, 2005, the multi-fibre agreement was scrapped by the WTO, paving the way for ending the regional quota system in the textile sector. At that time several consultants and industry experts felt that India has a great opportunity to trample other textile producing countries mainly from the south Asian and East Asian region and emerge as a powerful player in the sector along with China. Unfortunately, this has not happened even after 10 years. Some of the other countries such as Male and Bangladesh seem to be doing well. The reasons for

Prof. B. Mahadevan is a professor of Operations

Management at the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore, where he has

been teaching since 1992. Professor Mahadevan has

more than 23 years of wide-ranging experience

in teaching, research, consulting, and academic

administration at IIM Bangalore and other

reputed institutions such as IIT Delhi and XLRI,

Jamshedpur.

Prof. B Mahadevan writes

MAKE IN INDIA


this failure to grab an opportunity provided to us hold good for other sectors as well.

Indian manufacturing sector continues to be plagued by poor productivity and bad managerial and technical pool that the cost arbitrage is being challenged. When we adjust the labour cost with productivity, our advantages get narrowed down significantly. The other issue of concern is long lead times and poor delivery commitments which takes the wind out of business. Further, we have not been able to exhibit our innovation skills. Look at the

automobile sector of this country which started as early as 1946. Yet, as of 2015, we are unable to bring out a very good passenger car that can stand the competition in the domestic market place (leave alone the global markets). Today the largest selling cars in the world are Korean make, which began investing in the automobile sector only in 1974. In exactly 20 years, Hyundai could successfully produce and internationally market an all Hyundai

car called Accent. Why are we not able to showcase such examples in manufacturing in this country?

An area of great concern is the absence of qualified manpower to take on the projected growth in the manufacturing sector. The head count of qualified engineering graduates and management professionals mean very little in this country. Many business establishments and consulting firms have reported that the graduates are “not employable”. The business establishments have a hands off approach with educational

establishments, which has landed us into this mess. Who is to address this issue? I do not think educational institutions will be able to a handle this problem on their own. A vast majority of them neither have the interest nor the wherewithal to address this problem. It is time that business establishments invest in educational institutions with a long term perspective to address the manpower bottleneck likely to arise out of the “Make in India” campaign.

We need to show

a great deal of

passion, p atriotism,

long term business

vision and also a

sense of urgency to

tap this opportunity.

Such opportunities

perhaps knock at a

society once in 200

years.

The call for buying Indian goods will not be taken kindly by the society if the quality of the products and services are not up to the mark. We all have our own experiences in this matter and unless this changes the “Make in India” campaign will either remain as a dram or a mirage in the desert. Business establishments and greedy entrepreneurs should not view this as a highway to personal prosperity and milch the market with substandard products and services for overnight gains. Nor should they find holes in the government policy and pass the buck from one to the other. Instead the Indian government, and the business establishments must learn from the Japanese experiments in the 70s and 80s which emphasized on high quality at low cost as the basic foundation on which an economy can grow steadily.

In short, we need to show a great deal of passion, p atriotism, long term business vision and also a sense of urgency to tap this opportunity. Such opportunities perhaps knock at a society once in 200 years.

Forbes India called him the biggest and the best Fund

Manager of the country. Business Standard chosen four

times as the Fund Manager of the Year – Equities. The

funds that he manages at HDFC Mutual Funds have topped

the charts for over nine years. He’s made HDFC’s funds the

best performing and the most trusted ones in India. Here

for you, Prashant Jain PGP 91 , Chief Investment Officer,

HDFC writing from his experience and sharing insights

about the world of investment.


FUND MANAGER

y entry into the world of investing was an accident.

When I look back, it seems most improbable that I would end up with a career in investing.

I passed out from IIT Kanpur with a degree in Mechanical Engineering in 1989, and came to IIMB to actually prepare and write the civil services exam. I thought the objectivity of an engineer with the background of an MBA would skill me properly to be a civil servant. While at IIMB, I used to miss many classes and used to prepare for civil services holed up in my room (D TOP). My wing mates

M

INDIA’S BESTPrashant Jain PGP 91

writes

CovEr Story


were all older than me – they all had prior work experience and they lovingly (or so I believe) used to call me PAPPU. One of my professors was so upset with my attendance that he threatened to give me a D, which he eventually did, the only D grade in my two year course.

I made it to the civil services – but did not join (that is a long story and I will skip it here). I could relate less to marketing, HR and more to numbers so was looking for a job in financial services. I had appeared for three interviews – Citibank, ICICI and SBI Caps. In response to a question I suggested to Citibank in the interview that MNCs were not good for India (they were polite), ICICI did not select me and SBI Caps offered me a job.

I was the last in my batch to join SBI Caps as I was debating whether to pursue civil services or not.

When I finally joined SBI Caps, I was apologetically told by Mr. Sriram, the GM there, “Son - all the postings in merchant banking, project appraisals, marketing etc are filled up and all you can do is equity research”. I was the second member of the equity research team of SBI Mutual Fund – the first being EA Sundaram. It was he who introduced me to equities. Before that, all I knew of equities was equity capital as taught by Dr Prasanna Chandra and Prof. Vatsala Nagarajan, professors at IIM Bangalore.

Within two years four of us (me, Sundaram, Chandresh, and Swaminathan) quit and joined a start up mutual fund – 20th Century Mutual Fund. Between us, we were everything- Fund managers, analysts, dealers, ad designers, photocopiers, binders, etc. Our maiden Funds – Centurion Quantum Growth Fund & Centurion Prudence Fund collected a princely sum of ~Rs 100 crs.

The industry and our business was struggling as there was stagnation in stock markets for 10 years (interestingly, the longer the wait in stock markets, the more attractive they become). Despite the very weak growth in the business and our professional careers (~100 crs to ~500 crs equity assets in 10 years), me and my colleagues hung in there, as there was a belief in the future of India and as it was a period of intense learning. This period saw the emergence of the IT sector, the dotcom boom and the bust. We used to travel on a shoestring budget, often by rail, crammed 6-8 meetings in day, mobiles were non existent and STD calls were expensive etc.

It takes several years

and a 400% return

for Rs. 20 to become

Rs. 100; the reverse however can

happen much faster and a loss

of just 80% makes Rs. 20 of Rs.

100. Thus, one large mistake can

have a big impact in

the wealth creation

journey.

We invested in IT stocks reasonably early and more importantly sold out in good measure nearly 6 months before the bust. Post selling these stocks in my fund, was the most stressful period of my career. Infosys which was trading at a price of Rs 3.5 (P/E of ~15x) in March 1995 and at a price of ~Rs 274 (P/E of ~100x) in November 1999 made a peak of ~Rs. 690 price (P/E of 250x) in March 2000. The fund was in terrible shape – underperforming the benchmark and peers by a large margin. For the first time in my life I watched TV – unable to sleep. I would watch CNBC’s US feed the whole night. All this time I was struggling to find out the flaw in our assessment of the valuation of these businesses. Fortunately I was not fired, this reminds me one of a famous quote by Keynes -“The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent”. Fortunately or us, IT stocks collapsed, the funds made up in double quick time and our funds gained tremendously in reputation. When I look back, in a conventional sense this portfolio action was a very risky (even though justifiable) move from a career and business point of view. I guess this was a result of my less experience about the market cycles and a result of my days at IIT – where one is taught each day

CovEr Story


The key to wealth creation over long periods is thus in not

aiming for highest returns every year, but in avoiding big mistakes each year.

to analyze, reason, understand everything and act accordingly.

Post the dotcom bust, we gained much in reputation but less in business as by then the new business had dried up – given the mayhem in the markets. This is another funny thing that I have learned about equities and human nature – equities are the only thing that people buy happily at higher prices and not at half.

Consequently, the business was unable to scale up meaningfully. Zurich Financial Services (which had since acquired the 20th Century Mutual Fund) sold the operations to HDFC Mutual Fund in 2003, without doubt one of the best brands in financial services in the country. While I was apprehensive about this initially (my immaturity once again), this was the best thing that could have happened to me professionally and to the funds. This was a case of better times being thrust upon me. As Shakespeare has said “Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them”.

The scale, the brand, the distribution did wonders to the business and today HDFC Mutual Fund is the number one mutual Fund in India with assets of ~Rs 160,000 crores as on March 2015.

I give myself little credit for this – not

out of humility, but in all sincerity. With the benefit of hindsight, I can say that not only my entry to mutual fund industry was by chance, I was also fortunate to have entered an industry with great potential but clearly ahead of its times – this gave me more responsibilities at a young age – (I became a Fund Manager at 24 vs. becoming a Fund Manager today at 35-40), my several mistakes thus caused lesser losses for investors and shareholders. Besides my entry in capital markets was around the time when India was beginning to move to harness its economic potential. The only credit I give myself is that I worked really hard, I invested according to my convictions, I maintained and still do

a healthy balance between confidence and skepticism about my conclusions, and had a deep rooted belief about India and about mutual funds.

Despite me having done well in my career, I strongly feel that a career in investments is often overrated and misunderstood. While this

job offers continuous learning and higher compensation

compared to many other careers, particularly in the first 5-15 years of a career, the learning tapers off, routine increases and compensation also begins to taper off in majority of cases. Besides, the relationship between input and output in investing is a nebulous one, particularly in the short to medium term and

the performance is visible every day. The pressure of relative performance and the weak linkage between effort and output (akin to a career in sports or acting) ensure that the failure and casualty rate is high particularly in the second stage of a career. It is not surprising therefore to find very few people in this industry above 50. In my opinion, (though many will disagree) over a large sample, and over the entire career, the average compensation in investments is not too different from other good careers. I therefore advise caution to many youngsters who want to make a career in investments – this is a good career provided you genuinely enjoy this, have a knack for it (investing is as much art as it is a science) and if

CovEr Story


Illustration of compounding of Rs.1 lac (Rs. 100,000) at different CAGR rates & for different periods:

Equities are a simple asset class. They are simply volatile and hard to forecast (though many wrongly claim they can in my opinion) over short periods and they deliver returns in line with the performance of underlying businesses over long periods. A rough proxy for the growth of a diversified portfolio of businesses is the nominal GDP growth (Real GDP growth + inflation). The table below gives 1, 3,5,10 & 15 year returns of SENSEX. It can be observed that the

returns over short periods are extremely volatile but as the holding period increases the returns become less volatile and chances of loss reduce. Over long periods, not surprisingly the returns are around 14%(+/-)2% CAGR which is inline with nominal GDP growth of India. The beauty of compounding over long periods is that a 100 SENSEX in March 1979 became ~28,000 in March 2015 (280 times in 36 years), CAGR of ~17%.

Source: Internal computation. Past performance may or may not be sustained in future. Mention the Period of data for Sensex and Mutual Funds.

It can be clearly seen, that over long periods a seemingly small difference between compounding at 10% and 18% is huge (Rs 6.7 lacs vs. Rs 2.7 million in 20 years).

@ CAGR (%)Rs. in lacs Asset Category representative

with similar returns1 Year 3 Year 5 Year 10 Year 20 Year

10 1.10 1.33 1.61 2.59 6.73 Bonds / Gold

14 1.14 1.48 1.93 3.71 13.74 BSE SENSEX / CNX NIFT

18 1.18 1.64 2.29 5.23 27.39Equity Mutual Funds

outperforming SENSEX by 4% CAGR

you are able to handle the uncertainty. One more disadvantage of this line is that it offers few alternate career options in later years – other than managing your own investments.

Coming back to my job, I have two main responsibilities – I head the investments team at HDFC Mutual Fund and I am also a manager to few funds. I would specifically like to mention HDFC Prudence Fund, a balanced fund that I have managed for more than 20 years now. This Fund has delivered a CAGR of 20 % and money has become 48 times over this period.(For details please refer the

performance table at the end)

Right in the initial few years of my career, I concluded, that the economic growth prospects of India were very sustainable and that equities over time grow in line with the nominal GDP of a country. This encouraged me to invest my savings in equities in almost their entirety. This has been one of the best decisions that I could have made at a young age. My first SIP was Rs 500 per month, and over time I have continued to invest more as my savings grew. The result today of the small but regular savings,

long periods of compounding, is a very pleasing one. Einstein said “Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world. He who understands it, earns it ... he who doesn’t ... pays it”.

I have experienced compounding not on paper but in real life and would urge others to start investing in equities at the earliest. This is the best way to achieve financial independence and security by the time one is in middle age. The table below gives a simple computation about the growth of capital at different CAGR rates and for different periods.

nature of equitiesShort term returns

in equities are

volatile; hence equity

investments should

be made with a long

term horizon


investinG for oneself: it is simPler than you think There are three decisions as investor needs to make: Asset allocation, Timing, Fund / Stock selection. Investors, not all, but most, give a lot of attention to timing the stock markets and to short term Fund / Stock performance. Asset allocation is the key to successful investing and surprisingly it is also the most neglected, as most of the attention is focused on timing, security selection, moving across funds etc. Studies have suggested that in investing, upto 90% of returns and wealth over long periods are driven by asset allocation only and not by security selection or timing.

To benefit from this, all an investor needs to do is to assess and allocate one’s risk capital (that portion of capital which can be kept aside for few years and on which volatility can be tolerated) to equities. The rest can be invested in fixed income etc.

YEAR END SENSEX%Return CAGR

Rolling 1 yr

Rolling 5 yrs

Rolling 10 yrs

Rolling 15 yrs

Mar – 79 100

Mar – 80 129 29

Mar – 81 173 35

Mar – 82 218 26

Mar – 83 212 -3

Mar – 84 245 16 20

Mar – 85 354 44 22

Mar – 86 574 62 27

Mar – 87 510 -11 19

Mar – 88 398 -22 13

Mar –89 714 79 24 22

Mar – 90 781 9 17 20

Mar – 91 1168 50 15 21

Mar – 92 4285 267 53 35

Mar – 93 2281 -47 42 27

Mar – 94 3779 66 40 31 27

Mar – 95 3261 -14 33 25 24

Mar – 96 3367 3 24 19 22

Mar – 97 3361 0 -5 21 20

Mar – 98 3893 16 11 26 21

Mar – 99 3740 -4 0 18 20

Mar – 00 5001 34 9 20 19

Mar – 01 3604 -28 1 12 13

Mar – 02 3469 -4 1 -2 14

Mar – 03 3049 -12 -5 3 15

Mar – 04 5591 83 8 4 15

Mar – 05 6493 16 5 7 15

Mar – 06 11280 74 26 13 16

Mar – 07 13072 16 30 15 8

Mar – 08 15644 20 39 15 14

Mar – 09 9709 -38 12 10 6

Mar – 10 17528 81 22 13 12

Mar – 11 19445 11 12 18 12

Mar – 12 17404 -10 6 18 12

Mar – 13 18836 8 4 20 11

Mar – 14 22386 19 18 15 13

Mar – 15 27957 25 10 16 12

Probability of loss 12/36 3/32 1/27 0/22

Long term returns

are less volatile;

risk in equities

reduces as holding period

increases

CovEr Story


If an investor has good understanding and can spare enough time, he or she may go in for direct equities. Taking a correct view, however involves lots of research, even then errors cannot be completely avoided - Such is the nature of investments. So my advice to investors would be to prefer Funds over direct equities if they do not understand equities well or do not have the time

to spare. John C Bogle, founder of the Vanguard group has suggested in his book “Common Sense on Mutual Funds” that three to five mutual fund schemes that have done well across market cycles are all that an investor needs for one’s equity portfolio.

After asset allocation, all that an investor needs is patience and

discipline: Patience to remain invested for long periods in equities / equity mutual funds to allow compounding to work and the discipline of not panicking and on the contrary increasing allocation to equities when the returns over the past few years have been disappointing or in simple words when the P/Es are low (practice low P/E investing).

india economic outlookOutlook for Indian economy and Indian equities is promising. India is one of the best placed among large economies in the world in terms of demographics, demand, growth etc in my opinion. India is a key beneficiary of lower crude oil prices. The savings from lower oil prices are near 2% of GDP on run rate basis at current oil prices over CY13 average.

Apart from lower oil prices, a strong, growth oriented and business friendly government bodes well for economic growth and for businesses. Key decisions of new government so far give confidence that lower fiscal deficit is a priority and it should continue to fall. The government has shown with its actions that it will prioritize quality of supply of essential things

Choose a Fund by its track record, investment discipline, and consistency of performance - not by size. For those who

still value size, bigger Funds have done better!

45

40

35

30

25

20

15

10

5

0

35,000

30,000

25,000

20,000

15,000

10,000

5,000

0

roll pe (LHs)

seNseX (rHs)

average (LHs) Source: CLSA

91 93 94 95 98 99 01 03 04 06 08 09 11 13

**

*

like electricity etc. over the price of supply; put in place a transparent framework so that India can harness potential of its vast mineral resources; simplify tax structures and improve tax compliance; and follow policies

that will aim to lead healthy and sustainable economic growth.

It is evident from chart 1, that despite the strong returns of 2014-15, current P/E multiples of equity markets are

Chart 1

CovEr Story


Scheme

Descrete Returns in % Value of investment

of Rs. 10,000 Since

Inception (Rs.)

NAV/Index Value as on 31st Mar 15

Mar 31, 14 to Mar

31, 15

Mar 28, 13 to Mar

31, 14

Mar 30, 12 to Mar

28, 13

Since Inception CAGR (in

%)

HDFC Prudence Fund$ @ 376.12 41.84 19.03 3.29 20.13 4,86,125

CRISIL Balanced Fund Index1 5230.30 22.53 13.29 8.18 N.A N.A

CNX Nifty Index2 8491.00 26.65 17.82 7.31 9.55 69,036

Other Funds Managed by Prashant Jain, Fund Manager of HDFC Prudence Fund

HDFC Top 200 Funds 342.678 35.11 20.31 4.52 22.38 4,17,830

S &P BSE 2001 3537.55 31.93 17.04 6.03 14.01 1,12,823

S &P BSE SENSEX2 27957.49 24.89 18.68 8.23 12.52 88,459

HDFC Equity Fund 469,724 41.49 22.25 3.61 20.93 4,69,724

CNX 500 Index1 6978.15 33.56 17.56 5.13 10.07 69,781

CNX Nifty Index2 8491.00 26.65 17.82 7.31 N.A N.A

HDFC Infrastructure Fund# 16.711 58.70 10.91 -8.57 7.54 16,711

CNX 500 Index1 6978.15 33.56 17.56 5.13 8.48 17,766

CNX Nifty Index2 8491.00 26.65 17.82 7.31 8.41 17,688

HDFC MF MIP Long Term Plan+� 34.5855 21.49 8.50 8.07 11.64 34,586

CRISIL MIP Blended Index1 2936.22 16.45 6.46 9.06 7.84 23,420

CRISIL 10 year Gift Index2 2630.54 14.57 -0.95 11.25 5.03 17,385

Past performance may or may not be sustained in the future. SAll dividends declared prior to the splitting of the Scheme into Dividend & Growth Options are assumed to be reinvested in the units of the Scheme at the then prevailing NAV (ex-dividend NAV). #The Scheme is co-managed by Prashant Jain and Srinivas Rao Ravuri. +The Scheme is co-managed by Prashant Jain (Equities) and Shobhit Mehrotra (Debt), @Scheme performance may not strictly be comparable with that of its Additional Benchmark in view of balanced nature of the scheme where a portion of scheme’s investments are made in debt instruments. Scheme performance may not strictly be comparable with that of its Additional Benchmark in view of hybrid nature of the scheme where a portion of scheme’s are made in equity instruments. 1 Benchmark 2, Additional Benchmark

DISCLAIMER: This article is dated 26 May 2015. The

views, opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed

in this article by Mr. Prashant Jain constitute his

own views and not of HDFC Asset Management

Company Limited (HDFC AMC)/HDFC Mutual Fund

(the Fund). The views are based on internal data,

publicly available information and other sources

believed to be reliable. Any calculations made are

approximations, meant as guidelines only, which

you must confirm before relying on them. The

information contained in this article is for general

purposes only. The article does not have regard to

specific investment objectives, financial situation

and the particular needs of any specific person

who may receive this article. The information/ data

herein alone are not sufficient and should not be

used for the development or implementation of

an investment strategy. The statements contained

herein are based on the current views and involve

known and unknown risks and uncertainties that

could cause actual results, performance or events

to differ materially from those expressed or implied

in such statements. Past performance may or may

not be sustained in future. Neither HDFC AMC

and the Fund nor any person connected with

them, accepts any liability arising from the use of

this article. The recipient(s) before acting on any

information herein should make his/her/their own

investigation and seek appropriate professional

advice and shall alone be fully responsible / liable

for any decision taken on the basis of information

contained herein.

MUTUAL FUND INVESTMENTS ARE

SUBJECT TO MARKET RISKS, READ

ALL SCHEME RELATED DOCUMENTS

CAREFULLY.

reasonable and below long term averages. Further, corporate earnings should grow at healthy rate as corporate margins are significantly below the long term averages and should improve as capacity utilization and business conditions improve (Chart2). There is thus room for multiples to expand as growth improves and as interest rates move lower besides strong earnings growth.

To summarize, the outlook for equities is promising from a 3-5 year view. The best time to invest was yesterday, the second best is today!

s&p bse sensex ebitda margin (%) Source: BAML

95 9997 01 03 05 07 09 11 13 15E

24.0

22.0

20.0

18.0

16.0

14.093

Chart 2

Performance table


Finance Secretary

ou have worked extensively in the government across domains, right from

education to the present position in the central government as the finance secretary. How has the journey been for you personally?

Life throws its own challenges. I don’t think I planned for any of these. It is just that one is doing ones job properly and one is also trying to learn something in the picked areas. Then of course one ends up being in a job the government thinks is more suitable for us. I don’t think we have a choice for a career path in the IAS services. I don’t think it is possible for me to choose a particular post or position. It just has happened. The journey, I would say, was one in which I was never worried about the post, but with the spirit of Karma Yoga one does keep doing something which is useful for the country.

As the Finance Secretary, what is your role? What are the challenges and most satisfying aspect of your job?

We are 5 secretaries in the Ministry of Finance and my role is that of the Secretary of Financial Services. Financial Services department looks after banking, insurance and pension fund. This is my specific job charter. Banking and insurance includes both public sector banks and financial institutes owned by the government. Similarly in Insurance, apart from the 5 companies owned by the government, we also have to facilitate the development of the Insurance sector. The newly passed Insurance Amendment Bill was the work of our department. The Pension Fund Regulator (PFRDA) and Insurance Regulator (IRDA) and the RBI are part of my department. We have about 26 government banks and other institutions such as EXIM bank, SIDBI, IIFCL NHB and other such institutions in the Insurance Sector

YGold medallist of the first batch of PGPPM, Dr Hasmukh Adhia

PGPPM 02 is an IAS officer from the Gujarat cadre. He currently

serves as the Secretary, Department of Financial Services, Ministry of

Finance, Government of India. Dr Adhia is looking after the Statutory

and operational matters related to Banking, Financial Institutions,

Insurance and Pension Reforms. By virtue of this position, he is on the

Board of Directors of Reserve Bank of India, State Bank of India, Life

Insurance Corporation of India, Exim Bank and India Infrastructure Finance

Company Limited.

Prerna Wadikar PGPPM 12 interviews

Hasmukh Adhia to bring you insights from his professional life as an IAS officer working with the Government and to take a

slice of knowledge from his spiritual experience.

and a KarMa yogiFinance Secretary

dr. haSMUkh adhia PgPPM 02

CoNvErSAtIoN


Talking about the most challenging aspect of my job - today the share of public sector banks in total bank financing - is about 75%. Both in credit and deposit, the share of government banks is still 75%. It is virtually the banks which keep the economy running, so we are conscious of the fact that we have to keep the public sector banks in good health and not let them pull down the economy. One of the problems of public sector banks are the nonperforming assets (NPA). This has partly happened due to historical reasons of last 3-4 years when the projects were all stalled for not getting enough fuel supply or not having the required permissions in place. The public sector banks were the major financiers of the infrastructure projects. Since the infrastructure projects were not in a good shape, it has affected our public sector banks also. We are hence reviewing it and taking all the measures to be undertaken by the Government, the banks or the RBI. We have to see to it that the NPA situation does not aggravate and that we are able to contain it.

Talking of infrastructure spending, the investment by private sector on infrastructure is almost non-existent, predominantly because private banks are reluctant to lend. Do you think a policy driven approach would propel the push in this direction, or is PPP the only way to go as of now?

Private sector Banks have shown a lot of reluctance to lend to infrastructure projects and so the state sector banks have helped to take a proactive role, otherwise the infrastructure projects would not come up. That’s how they have played their role, and they have had the impact of that on their balance sheet. In the past, PPPs have failed because of several reasons such as poor structuring of

the projects, incorrect risk allocation of the PPP projects; for e.g. the risk of land acquisition which is better taken by the sovereign was not probably assumed by the public authorities. Besides, there are other things which could have been better done by public authorities, which did not happen, because of which some of the PPP projects ended up in troubles. What I think we need to do until the time the PPP structure is improved is to focus on public sector spending. The railways and National Highway Authority are gearing up for that already. They would invest public money directly in those projects so that the cycle of investment is solved.

What has been the most fulfilling aspect of your professional life? Who do you attribute the success of your professional life to?

Everything I have done is extremely satisfying. I have found nothing boring. However I firmly believe there is a scope to improve things in any department you work in. Whether it is Department of Disability or Department of Social Justice or Education or Finance. In each of these departments, there is definitely a scope of much better improvement. Each one of them has been very satisfying. I can’t single out a posting which has been better than the rest. I have worked in education for five years, as Education Secretary in the Government of Gujarat from 2008 to 2013. I found that posting very satisfying.

You have extensively written about and studied yoga. What is your daily life like? What advice would you like to give to our readers?

I normally sleep at 9:30 PM and wake up at 4:30 AM. After taking bath, I meditate for an hour followed

by a walk for about 30-35 minutes. This is the time I use for listening to talks given my spiritual mentor on Upanishads. After the walk, I do yoga and pranayama. So 4:30 to 08.00 in the morning is my private time for self. My advice to others is “Look after your personal health and hygiene – physical as well as mental health “. Every professional who really has to excel in life has to spend two hours at least in the morning for oneself. The routine has to be set, such that you don’t even touch the newspaper for first two hours in the morning. You could do anything you like, listen to the chirping of the birds, or meditate, walk, or do pranayama or whatever you like. But two hours you should spend with yourself without getting disturbed. That is the best thing you can do to help yourself with your personal and professional life. Your thinking is sharpened once you have given yourself that kind of time.

We should all try to do our job in the best possible manner with diligence, without neglect, by applying our mind properly and looking at all the facts and figures. Always take decisions based on hard data and one should never be bothered about the results of the work. Results are bound to be good if the efforts are good. But even if the results are not as expected, we must accept it as “Prasad” of the God. There are things destined for you, and the results cannot be different for you. One has to focus only on the work inputs. Karmayoga is doing your work without selfishness, without expectations and without ego. If everybody practices work like this, then the work input itself becomes yoga and one may not need to go into bhakti yoga. Karma yoga itself becomes the source of Poonya Karma.


International Telecommunications Union and United Nations in Geneva, awarded the prestigious World Summit on Information

Society (WSIS) 2015 Award to Centre of Public Policy (CPP) of IIMB. The award was given for CPP at IIMB for a versatile

satellite learning programme – Satellite and Advanced Multimedia Education (SAME). Spearheaded by Professor Gopal Naik,

Chairperson of Centre of Excellence for Urban Development at IIMB, SAME was developed to bridge the quality of education gap

between urban and rural education. Professor Naik and his team were awarded under innovative ICT applications with scalability

category for E-learning.

IIMB awarded the prestigious WSIS Award

IIMB the only Indian B-School in FT 2015 Executive Education RankingsIndian Institute of Management Bangalore (IIMB) is the only Indian Business School to feature in the Financial Times Executive Education 2015 Top 50 Rankings. The FT 2015 Rankings position IIMB at the 48th position alongside prestigious institutions like the London Business School, Duke Corporate Education, IMD, Harvard School of Business, University of Oxford among others.

pgp review 2015: alumni provide valuable feedback

WhAt’S up @ IIMB


In December 2014, IIMBangalore embarked on a comprehensive review of its Post Graduate Programme in Management covering programme philosophy, content, and pedagogy among others. As part of the review process, the PGP Review Committee sought inputs from important stakeholders such as current students, faculty, recruiters, and PGP alumni. The feedback from PGP alumni comprised an online survey in March 2015 and several interactions on campus from December 2014 to March 2015. The response to the online survey from PGP alumni (both in India and abroad) was overwhelming. The interaction sessions on campus provided a platform to alumni and the review committee members to delve deeper into some issues. The review committee members met with the PGP Batches of 1984, 1994, 1999, and 2004, coinciding with their batch reunions. These sessions were followed by two sessions with Bangalore-based PGP alumni in March 2015.

Through the online survey and interaction sessions, alumni highlighted the need for deeper collective thinking about the unique identity of IIMB’s PGP graduate. They also stressed the importance

of greater experiential learning during the programme through industry projects and workshops, and for developing more integrative thinking among students. Alumni also pointed to the need for leveraging the advantage of being located in Bangalore, as the city has become a hub for entrepreneurship in India. A large number of alumni expressed their willingness to contribute to the programme by providing live projects and career guidance to students, mentoring them on soft skills, and taking lectures in courses. Most of these inputs were incorporated in the PGP Review Report and accepted by the faculty body when the PGP Review Committee made its presentation. The programme is likely to see introduction of a large number of unconventional workshops that would contribute to the experiential learning of the students. Plans are also afoot to incorporate entrepreneurship within the core curriculum as well as to introduce a strong element of mentorship. Many of these new initiatives will result in greater involvement of the alumni in the programme.

The PGP Review Committee thanks all Alumni for providing valuable inputs.

The Institute felicitated Padma Bhushan Dr. K Radhakrishnan PGP 76, Former Chairman of

ISRO, Captain of India’s Mars Mission. Dr. Radhakrishnan

delivered an engaging talk to an audience comprising of alumni, students, faculty and staff. PGP 76 alumni, Dr. Radhakrishnan’s

classmates, came down to campus to share their pride in his

extraordinary achievements.

Prof. Pulak Ghosh was featured among the 10 Most Influential Analytics Leaders in India

iiMB feliCitated dr. radhaKrishnan

Prof. Pranav Garg PGP 02 writes

Students of EGMP 31 Manu Shrot and Yuvraj Gupta were declared World Champions in the Spring ‘15 Capstone International Challenge

WhAt’S up @ IIMB


IIMB Celebrated its 40th Annual Convocation

lord Jeffrey archer @

iiMB’s Culture Connect

Hargopal Mangipudi PGSEM 01 inaugurated the Post Graduate

Programme for Enterprise Management (PGPEM) at IIMB

At an exclusive interaction at IIM Bangalore, where he launched

his latest book ‘Mightier Than The Sword’, Jeffrey Archer held the

audience - comprising students, faculty and alumni - spellbound

with tale after entertaining tale from his own life.

WhAt’S up @ IIMB


swachh Bharat abhiyaan @ iiMB

Last year in August 2014, IIMB announced a partnership with edX – a non-profit US-based company that is democratizing education like never before. Now, ten months later, the IIMBx programme at IIMB is all set to go live with its first MOOC on July 7th. The first MOOC already has over 5000 enrolments. We have three more courses in line that have over 1000 enrolments each. Our courses are available at http://www.edx.org/school/iimbx.

Our courses cover a range of topics including Accounting, Information Systems, Operations Management,

Human Relations, Marketing, Strategy, Finance and Statistics, as well as other management topics such as Analytics, Banking and Financial Markets, International Business Management and Sustainability.

Staying true to IIMB’s motto, ‘Let out learning be radiant’, our MOOCs are committed to make world-class management education accessible from every corner, street, village and city of India and the world. IIMB is striving to make its courses come to life on a wide range of mobile and computing devices.

Online learning is here to stay. Enroll in IIMB’s MOOCs on edX today! It’s the future, it’s fun, it’s free!

iiMBx Moocs - all set to go live!

First, it’s about

access. Second,

it’s about more

than just access.

It’s about

innovating,

finding new ways

of interacting

with students,

delivering

content, changing

the way people

learn. That is

what progress

is – it will change

us as teachers,

change us as

learners.

- Prof. Rahul De

At IIMB, we recognize

that the way education

will be delivered in

future will be radically

different, thanks to

technology. People

who could not afford a

world-class education

will now have access

to it. IIM Bangalore is

India’s first management

school to join edX as a

Participating Member.

Through IIMBx, we

will leverage new

technologies and

deliver education via

MOOCs. Handpicked

courses taught by some

of our eminent faculty

will be offered free of

cost as MOOCs through

the edX platform.

- Prof. Sushil Vachani

No more is a learner

shackled to the

society within a

classroom - this

time, the audience

is truly global. This

international reach

and experience

are impossible

to orchestrate,

no matter how

sophisticated your

brick and mortar

setup is. Other

aspects such as self-

paced instruction,

posing queries on

forums and having

them be addressed

by one’s own peers

are clear benefits.

- Prof. Shankar

Venkatagiri

I am extremely happy

to offer a course in

the MOOC format.

Designing course for

MOOC format has been

a great experience.

Discussing a concept

in about 5 minutes,

which would have

otherwise taken 30

minutes in a regular

classroom format was

challenging. It forced

me to fundamentally

rethink on presenting

the concept. It was also

great opportunity to

chart into new contours

in teaching and

innovate the pedagogy.

Prof. Mahadevan

Dr. Prithwiraj Mukherjee joined the Institute

as Assistant Professor in the Marketing Area

General Management Programme for Aerospace and Aviation Executives (GMAE) kicks off @ IIMB

WhAt’S up @ IIMB


Punjab University Electrician’s son,

Ram Narayan Shukla, cracked

CAT and joins IIMB

IIMB’s PGPEM program hosted a panel discussion on Make in India

IIMB’s student team comprising Rohit Jain, Amrita Kini and Srirang Chilapur won the competition “So You Think You Can Trade?” conducted by Bloomberg.

IIMB hosted a three day international conference, ‘Transnational Entrepreneurs and International SMEs in Emerging Economies’, the conference was attended by a congregation of eminent scholars, researchers and practitioners from all different parts of the globe, both as participants and as well as speakers

IIMB’s Management Programme for Women Entrepreneurs (MPWE) saw another vibrant group of women

graduating this year.

LIVING

A shot of the Ao Nang beach, Thailand, on a lazy afternoon. I happened to take a detour on my way back after visiting

Singapore as part of a course at IIMB last year which resulted in this click.

Anup Chandramohan Unnithan PGP 15

LENSSeven of our alumni photographers share with you the imagery they capture out of life through their lenses.


Kaash - When I drove down the 200 mile distance from Mumbai, past

Pune and then Satara, to Kaas on a rain soaked highway, I had expected to see flowers. The place is famous

for it. It is the UNESCO World Heritage site and is abundantly

endowed with flowers of all kinds. The most interesting aspect is the appearance of new species every

season. And then I saw this solitary tree. It was past monsoon, early

September, full bloom season, but there were no leaves, no flowers,

no fruits and no life on the tree. Nothing! The full bodied lake was

drowned in a thick fog that covered the water like a wrinkle free white

sheet. The tree was dipped in water, with its reflection staring back. At

nothing! Captured the scene from a low angle. The DSLR almost touched the water while the denim was fully drenched. Visibility was very low and I

loved the way the fog provided a natural filter.

Sanjay Shankar PGP 94

LENS & LIvINg


Innocence personified in a traditional Japanese Kimono. Photograph taken at Meiji Jingu Shrine.

Chaitanya Deepak PGP 15

The picture of my son and wife - this was the first photo shoot I had for my son while he was just two weeks old. This is the moment when he smiled at his mother, the only face he then recognized :)

Bharath Ravichandran PGP 13

LENS & LIvINg


This ‘Symphony of Colours’ is taken at Croatia’s largest national park, Plitvice Lakes National Park which is also an UNESCO World heritage site. The image was taken during my exchange term in November 2014 using a SONY DSC

HX9V (point & shoot).

Sunil Thuruthummal Kurian PGP 15

LENS & LIvINg


At Hadinaru Lake near Mysore, it was lunch time for this Little Cormorant. It tossed its catch in style before swallowing it, giving me a beautiful photo opportunity.

Madhava Kurup PGSEM 04

The picture was taken at Nagaon beach near Alibaug in Maharashtra after the completion of Bullock Cart practice race in morning of March

2015.

Ravi Kumar PGP 12

LENS & LIvINg



he #100sareepact is a promise between Ally Mathan and I, to wear one

hundred sarees this year.

Why? Because we want to show our sarees some love. For too long we had relegated the saree to the back of the closets only to be worn on special occasions, mostly festivals. So we decided, we would air them and wear them. But it doesn’t stop there. We are both story tellers. I am a Communications Consultant in rich media, Ally is a perfumier. We were compelled by habit to take the pact further to weave a narrative with the memories attached to each saree.

And so it began on March 1st this year. I posted on Facebook, more to hold myself accountable by announcing that this is what I was doing. The next day a few friends joined in. Ally began to post too. And her friends joined in. And the next thing we both knew, the #100sareepact had gone viral.

We would post updates on what we were wearing and a story about it. Sometimes about it’s legacy, sometimes about the weave, other times an instance that occurred when we wore it last or just how we felt being enveloped in our mother’s saree and love. An emotion, a glimpse into our past and present.

Social media helped us to amplify the message. This is as much a story of the pact as it is about the power of social media. Our pact and it’s stories were amplified by Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr by women and men in the pact. The #100 sareepact is now all over the world. In all major cities of India - Bangalore, Chennai, Coimbatore, Cochin, Mumbai, Delhi, Amdavad, Lucknow, Kolkata, Assam, Kashmir… and across the globe in Australia, Korea, UK, Netherlands, Italy, France and the US of A. And now the regional press is taking it deeper into India also.

My friend, Rekha, wrote about wearing the saree that her mother had worn, 56 years ago, and how she remembered her father being stunned every time her mother wore a saree. He would sing for her, in front of the children, much to her chagrin and embarrassment, and laugh away her protest. “There, I hear him sing a song”, she wrote wistfully about her parents that are no more.

A gentleman wrote in to tell us how the smell of eau de cologne would remind him of his grandmother in her many sarees. She has passed on. She would keep cotton soaked in her cupboard of sarees which she draped, every single day. Another gentleman, a photographer is contributing to #100sareepact with photo shoots telling

the story of one hundred women with his editorial twist. A Spanish professor opened his talk on the history of the saree in a museum, in Madrid, with the story of the #100sareepact and how the story of the saree is told in modern times.

One lady stepped out in the cold in Michigan, in boots and a turquoise blue saree peeping from beneath the jacket. Another lady went for her book reading meet in a saree in Netherlands. And in a poignant post, a mother wore a blue saree to spread awareness on autism and it’s challenges.

T

The big wave of#100sareepactAnju Maudgal Kadam MPWE 10


There are memories of special moments, gifts of sarees, mother & daughter relationships that have been shared since. Also strong statements about being comfortable in one’s skin, colour tone, gender diversity, choice and prevailing prejudice have emerged. The myriad rituals practiced by different families, their customs & traditions. The canvas of the stories is growing in expanse everyday, with every post. So the saree is now a medium to tell stories. THAT is what interests me the most.

I’ve told stories of my roots, my friends, my upbringing, my travel. I have to

say, this has spiralled way beyond what we had thought or hoped for. We never planned for this. I shy away from writing some days, knowing that so many I don’t know will read my account through my saree photo. Is this too public? Then, some days, I am compelled to tell my story. To be heard. To find an audience that will listen and understand. That will respond to my telling and to me.

This is more than clicking a photograph, and putting it up, to make myself accountable to my pact of wearing a saree a hundred times this year. This has now become about

finding a voice through my sarees to tell my story.

The other day a bunch of us were in a saree for a shoot for a news channel, and a cleaner lady leaned from a few floors above and called out that we looked lovely. My “aha” moment. This movement is cutting across boundaries

laid down by society too…I waved my gratitude to her.

I eagerly await the morning to see who will wear what saree, and tell which story. There are common threads running through the sharing, and that commonality, of belonging to a narrative that unfolds, has been my most delightful discovery.

Everyone keeps asking me which is my favourite story so far. My answer remains the same. EVERY story needed telling. My favourite are those that I connect with, that make me privy to a moment in life that may have long gone, but whose fragrance lingers.

There is something magical taking place here. This coming together of a community of saree lovers and storytellers, and we are archiving it for the future at www.100sareespact.com, work in progress, as we steal time from our day jobs to refine it.

The #100sareepact is a celebration of our lives. I’ve been asked often what we are selling. The #100sareepact doesn’t sell anything. It is a platform where happiness is being shared. Positivity too. We are seeing the silver lining in our everyday living.

I invite you to join us in building this legacy of the saree and it’s story.


The NighT before

I Jumped!Harish Mittal PGP 88

magine sitting at the door of an aeroplane up above in the sky! Imagine your

legs dangling with 14000 feet of space under them! Imagine the free fall awaiting you!

My brain was screaming “You idiot. You don’t know what you are doing!” The shiver down my spine was colder than the wind blowing in my face. I was pumped with adrenaline. With an equal mix of excitement and fear.

I That’s how I felt in my first sky dive at Barwon Heads in Australia this February.

The night before, I was so excited for my jump, I didn’t know if I ever slept. It was like the night before an all-important exam. The apprehension of what was ahead - I had deliberately not read much, or asked friends who had dived. What’s the fun if you already know the paper?

Adventure

Streak

ADvENturE StrEAK


On one hand I had butterflies in my tummy, and on the other the great excitement that ‘the’ day was finally here. Anticipation of that ride up to 14000 feet in a tiny aircraft. Of the free falling like coyote off the cliff. Of flying like a bird. Oh boy! I had been waiting so long for this.

As I tucked myself into the bed that night, thoughts started flashing like a Hollywood thriller in 32x fast forward. Will the instructor be strapped to me snug, or be tethered a few feet off? Falling at the speed of over 100 miles an hour must cause major air drag. Will my glasses stay in place then? What would the ride be ultimately like? My heart and mind couldn’t quite agree between a nerve wrecking roller coaster ride, and a sleek and smooth pierce of a bullet train.

I wondered if it would be cold enough up there to add another layer. I questioned myself if I was fit enough to fly. I had skipped to check if mild wheezing or hypertension were acceptable risks. Perhaps I hadn’t skipped. Deep down my heart, I knew I wanted to do this at any cost. I did not want any pussyfooting T&C to come between me and my dream.

What would happen if I were to be the one rare accident? Had I done enough for my family? Had I done all that I wanted to? Heck, no. Sky dive was just halfway down my bucket list. I knew sky dive is safer than most roads. So why the jitters? I guess the jitters were not for the physical act of the jump. But for the repercussions of anything unexpected, however unlikely.

I had to distract my mind. I started thinking about other not-so-exciting stuff. My roomie’s mild snores. The

rhythmic drip of a tap. The sliver of light creeping in from the hallway under the door. Slowly I drifted off. But the thoughts kept lingering somewhere deep and I think I dived at least a half dozen times over the night.

Suddenly I came awake with total alertness. The room was equally dark, the drip of the tap as insistent. I looked at the big green numbers glowing on the digital clock on bedside, and it was only 5:40. I had set myself to wake up much later, close to my 10 am dive slot. But when the sleep snapped in wee hours, all the excitement came rushing back. I was wide awake.

The cinema reel started again, but now it was pure excitement. No fears. Just the thrill of diving. I was ready to jump right then and there. I felt like having slept for 10 long hours on a hard day’s work. I felt tall like a birch tree on alpine mountain slope. Fresh like a cool and sunny winter morning. Body tingling to go, mind razor sharp.

I had to rush this adrenalin somewhere. I made myself some green tea and sat down to read about ‘preparing to sky dive’. Might as well get that part right. And the three or four blogs I opened all concurred on one thing - there was nothing for me to do in the whole jump. Correction, nothing except two. One - Sign the insanely long, fear-inducing disclaimer. And two - Let myself ‘be jumped’. Yes, it promised to be like a “pillion ride on a bike” with the added advantage of front seat. I just needed to let go, that’s all.

By then, last of the knots was gone. I was ready and at the strip – only to hear “All sky dives are cancelled that day due to bad weather!”

Three days later, finally, the rescheduled date arrived. Winds delayed the flights yet again. It was way past my new 11am slot, and I was still waiting. With every passing hour, the itch got worse. I was wondering whether nature was conspiring with fate to deny me sky dive. Maybe I desired it too hard. If my turn didn’t come before sunset, it would be over. And I was flying back home the next day. This was my last chance. The disappointment of going back without diving was lashing at me. Much like the relentless waves going at the Great Ocean Road cliffs right there.

Finally at six the crew called my name to belt up. What a relief! Yes, I will jump. Somewhere behind the shed, a tiny trap of an aeroplane –of the size of a small car - landed from its last sortie. Along came the man I was going to entrust my life to. Yes, my tandem jumper, and instructor, and lifeguard - all rolled in one. He strapped the harness around me, attached a visor, and some more.

All kitted, we started our small trek to the aircraft. It was beautifully painted in blue and yellow. The videographer started shooting our walk to the sky, and kept asking for sound bites. And I was thinking, ‘Man, let me deal with myself. Let me enjoy this moment’. I waved a spirited bye to my friends on the ground, and saw them wave back as if it was the last one.

Three short steps on a small ladder, and I was inside the box. Two pilots in their seats. Two long bench-like protrusions from the floor, running abreast along the belly. The belly itself was no more than 10 or 12 feet long.

I Jumped!

ADvENturE StrEAK


I took my place on the bench, sitting astride like on a bike. And my tandem sat behind me. Just like a biker and pillion, in the reverse order. I looked around, and I realised that I was the last one in. So I was sittingrig ht next to the hatch we entered from. All that the hatch to cover was a thin rolling shutter, 4 feet by 4 feet. So much for security!

I looked at my dive mates and tried to read their expressions behind stony faces. They told a lot, for they hid a lot. The instructors and videographers started chatting us up. Soothing the nerves. The toy plane started rolling on the grass field, soared and started climbing in spirals. It reminded me of those toy contraptions where tiny cars spiral up a tower and then race down a ramp.

As we climbed, down unfolded a beautiful coastline. The sea appeared like a sheet of blue crinkled paper. As we gained height, my tandem kept showing me the altimeter. We were rising a whole 1000 feet a minute. My heartbeat should have raced, I had no means of knowing. I would not heard my heart beat over din of the engine and the wind.

I realised10 minutes had passed when my tandem, gave me the 10000-feet tap on my shoulder. Time for the last prep, the final minutes. He started tightening the harness yet again. I thought I would stop breathing. But I dared not stop him. Next he started buckling my harness to his. One, two, three and four clicks. Now we were welded together.

The videographer was persistent for yet another sound bite. Difficult to say no to a guy at 14000 feet. I obliged. My tandem began the checks.

Strap visor on to your glasses... Check Hobble to the hatch door... Check Sit at the open door… Check Dangle your legs free... Check Light over the door turning blue... Check Set, ready and ... Holy shit!!!

I was out in the air. I saw my tiny blue-gold aeroplane become tinier. It was shrinking so fast. Like a coin, dropped from a high bridge, disappearing down to the river. Any tether to life I knew was gone. Then we turned to face down. With an endless expanse of sky and clouds beneath us. There is a lot of sky all around you. And then it hit me. I was falling, free!

And after that, it was just bliss! I cried, I shouted, I screamed! Is this what the birds feel like? Free of all ties. Right then, it was just nature and me. I lost all track of time. I just got immersed in the experience. Turning, spinning and dancing!

Arms flapping, I felt the wind cutting through like a knife. The pull of gravity, and at the same time the thrust of air from below. I felt like in the stream of a fan of unimaginable power blowing somewhere. I could feel every inch of my skin stretch with the air pressure. I was falling at a speed of

ADvENturE StrEAK


200 kilometres an hour. That is over 50 meters a second, or 18 floors of a skyscraper every second. Imagine that!

Far below me, beneath the huge sky, I could see the gorgeous earth. The interlaced land and ocean like patterns on a giant carpet spread down there. But frankly, the view didn’t matter. The fall itself was such pure joy, the beautiful vista was no more than background music in a movie. The thrill of the fall went on building up and soon reached a crescendo. I was on top of the world. I started envying the tandem jumper - he gets to do this every day.

And whoop! The parachute flipped

open. Wow, that was fast. The 60 seconds of free fall must have clocked in fast forward. They certainly were the quickest 60 seconds of my life. And the most awesome 60 seconds, without any close rival. For a fleeting moment, I hated the bloody parachute.

A brief upward thrust, and began a gentle descent. I could now sit back and enjoy the view as we glided our way back to planet earth. I had thought I would sigh are lief on touching ground. But, no! I was flooded with an ecstasy. I was on the seventh heaven. The pleasure was so extreme, it already felt like a dream. Did I just fall off the sky? Was it me?

As soon as I was on my feet, I raced

to their office. They are downing shutters –ours was the last flight of the day. The friendly girl with a lip-ring, who had me fill all those forms, was hanging around. I blurted, “Can we do another jump? “She looked at me, pointed to the downed shutter, and started.

“You need to jump solo. Sign up for the course. Come back in early summer. Park in town for a week. You will start with a jump like today’s. Graduate to jumping side by side. And around your tenth jump, you will jump all by yourself.” She had me sold.

I am going back!

aNUSMaraN 2015



delhi | MuMbai | pune | bangalore | hyderabad | kolkata

chennai | london | new york | sydney | san francisco bay

singapore | aMsterdaM | seattle

CLaSS


NoTeSThis Republic day brought great honour to our Institute with two of our alumni winning the Presidential Medal for Meritorious Service – Sudha Koka IRS PGPPM 08 and Dinendra Kashyap PGPPM 15. Sudha Koka currently serves as the Additional Commissioner, Service Tax, Audit, Commissionerate, Bangalore and Dinendra Kashyap serves as the DIG of Kannur, Kerala.

Himanshu Kapania PGP 90, Managing Director Idea, to lead Cellular Operators Association of India.

Saumil Majumdar PGP 95 was conferred the “Distinguished Service Award” from IIT Bombay, his alma mater.

Shashi Yadavalli PGP

98 won the 6th Annual 40 under 40 Emerging Leaders

Award conferred by the M&A Advisor.

Shashi Yadavalli was named winner for the Service Professional

Category.

President’s Medal for two alumni

Dinendra Kashyap IPS PGPPM 15

Sudha Koka IRS PGPPM 08

K. Sree Kumar PGP 83 joined TechnoServe India as Deputy Director.

highUP

V K Menon PGP 82 joined IIMB as Chief Marketing

and Development Officer.

CLASS NotES


Himanshu Verma EGMP 15 becomes Chief Technology Officer

of Yatra.com.

Gaurav Arora PGP 03 becomes Chief Investment Officer of Religare Wealth Management.

Uma Ratnam Krishnan PGP 87 has been appointed as Director on the Board of Polaris Consulting. Narasimha Jayakumar

PGP 97 becomes Chief Business Officer of

99acres.com.

Anuradha Aggarwal PGP 97 and Bhavana Bindra PGP 2001 have been featured among India Inc’s Rising Women Leaders 2015. Bhavana is the Vice-President of Automotive Business, Cummins India and Anuradha Director Innovations, Biscuits, Asia Pacific, Mondelez International.

india inc’s rising WOmEN LEAdERS

Anuradha Aggarwal

Bhavana Bindra

Radha R PGP 93 becomes head of Mindtree’s new

business division.

Anju Patwardhan PGP 89 has been appointed as the first Group Chief

Innovation Officer of Standard Chartered Bank.

Arun Patre AFRM 08 started a food start-up, Indy Hop - House of Indian Pakoras, in Bangalore.

Homelane.com, co-founded by Rama Harinath PGP 02, raised $4.5 M funding from Sequoia Capital and Aarin Capital.

CLASS NotES


Deepak Nair PGSEM’08 cofounded an online venture that sells handmade products -www.cheripo.com.

Start-up

Amaresh Ojha GMITE 7 raised a whopping $135k in funding for his startup Gympik. Gympik is an online marketplace for fitness service providers.

Akshara Eye Hospitals, co-founded by Shailesh Kumar EPGP 13, raises angel $61,000 in its second round of funding.

Anjali Panakkat EGMP 26

has started a collaboration platform for companies in the life

sciences industry. Her start-up, called CRAMbridge, will be a

platform for Contract Research and Manufacturing (CRAM)

organizations to compete and win projects.

Pavan Chauhan and Ritesh

Hemrajani of PGP 96 raise $4M in investment for their elearning and assessment

company, Meritnation.

CLASS NotES


Alumni start-up company NextGen, co-founded by Abhishek Humbad PGP 11 and Richa Bajpai MPWE 09 and incubated at NSRCEL, raises funding led by Mumbai Angels.

After 18 years in the Corporate world, Manisha Lath Gupta PGP 97

has turned entrepreneur with her start up IndianArtCollectors.com

(IAC). Aimed at being the ‘Flipkart of Art’, IAC aggregates artists, dealers

and galleries all on one platform and offer first time buyers the choice,

information and tools to buy just the right piece of art for their homes.

Shampa Ganguly EGMP 13 takes her venture to the White House

Shampa Ganguly got the uncommon opportunity meet the US President, Barack Obama. Her company, PParke, won 1776 International Challenge Cup from India and went to the White House as a part of the Emerging Global Entrepreneurship team. Pparke helps commuters to spot parking, navigate, reserve spot and it also provides key insights on the dynamics of parking site & trends, competitive landscape and end-user usage analysis across various sites. Pparke, founded by Shampa and her husband, is currently incubated at NSRCEL, IIMB.

Vega Tamotia, an exchange student of 2007, has co-founded Ghotu Motu

Productions with an aim to revive Hindi rhymes. Her web series brings to life rhymes like “Upar chanda gol gol” and “Posham pa” like rhymes that today’s children are oblivious to. Vega is also a Bollywood actress.

Sanjay Kumar Nishank PGP 2000 has co-founded GREX, a start-up that aims to provide structured and convenient platform to raise capital from high quality, approved private investors and provide liquidity options for exit.

Momoe, start-up company founded by Ganesh Balakrishnan

PGP 08, raised $1.2M in funding by IDG, Jungle and India

Quotient.

Mohit Maheshwari PGP 12 Nithin Chandra PGP 11 and Anand Kelaginamani PGP 12 raised funds for their tech venture, Tsepak Technologies. Infoedge has invested in their mobile application ‘Goodbox’ that is all set to change B2C communications.

Sarvpriya Dewan PGSEM 08 and his wife Pooja Dewan started an NGO

called The Aashritha Foundation, which works towards promoting rational use

of medicines. They have kick-started a campaign, called, “I’M Wise”.

EPGP 31 - No matter where we live, how busy we are, we find time to catch up as often as we can.

CLASS NotES


Nirmala Sankaran PGP 88 celebrates 15 years of the

company she founded - HeyMath! Over the last 15 years, HeyMath!

has established a global footprint in Singapore, South Africa,

LATAM, India and the US. It has created systemic impact in Mathematics Education by building teaching capacity in schools systems, increasing student motivation, reducing failure rates, and improving

performance outcomes in high stakes tests.

IIMB & Anusmaran effect! Vaibhav Bindroo PGP 14

While I was in Mumbai, I decided to attend Anusmaran on May 09. I was talking to my friends when I heard a group of alumni talk

about start-ups and funding. An alumni had raised a round of funding for his start-up from

Accel. Me: “How was the funding experience?”

Alumnus: “I loved it, and I would raise the next round only from Accel.”

Me: “That’s, great.” We went on to talk further and I introduced

myself. Alumnus: “Vaibhav? What’s your full name?” He opened his phone and showed me his mail and

said “Is that you?” Me: “Yes. How do you know me?”

Alumnus: “I was looking for you. I want you on my team right now. Let’s talk.”

Me: Shell Shocked. And then a smile.

CLASS NotES


Pranav Garg PGP My best memory of IIMB is a batchmate wearing a Viking helmet to the exam hall for a Term 6 course on spirituality and self-development for managers. Amidst uncontrolled laughter, a visibly flustered Mr. Gundu Rao, Commander-in-Chief of the PGP Office, asked him why he was wearing the helmet. My batchmate replied that the helmet’s horns helped him connect with spiritual powers!

Rakesh Godhwani PGSEM 04 My best memory of IIMB as a student – the time when new cordless mikes were introduced in classes. Prof was supposed to keep the device in his pocket and tag the mike near his collar. He finishes the class but forgets to take the mikes off and walks out to the bathroom.

Ishan Patnaik PGP 15 Prof. Anshuman Tripathi’s class of Operations Management. While he was discussing a concept, to elaborate, he asked a student ‘M’ which industry he worked in. Everybody looked around as M

wasn’t in class at that time. Nobody realized that the Prof was looking at the name tag on the table and asking the question. But instead of M, another student S was sitting in his seat. Everybody started giggling to this and in the meantime S decided to act as if he were M and responded that he worked in consulting. At that moment M enters the class. The class sees him and starts giggling a bit louder. The Professor sees him and says you

are late and asks him to go his seat. When M arrives at his seat he finds S seating in his chair. There are a

few anxious glances between M and S before the Prof realizes that there has been an exchange of seats and

asks the students to go to their original seats.

Then the Prof starts again, Prof: So the real M where did you

work in? M: Sir consulting. And the whole class bursts out in laughter.

Anuradha Sridharan PGSEM 10

Breathing fresh air at 8 AM, walking into the beautiful campus - one of the many memories of #myIIMB.

Gursartaj Singh Nijjar PGP 15 I used to wear a white turban (patka) and the other two surds only black. So people were curious. I convinced several people that it was because I was born in daylight and they were born at night.

This May, we saw the social

media coming alive with our

alumni sharing their best

memories of

IIMB with the

hashtag ‘#myIIMB’.

Here are some of

the memories

shared:

CLASS NotES


Gaurav Sharda and Shruthi Kumar, both from the batch of PGP 14, tied the knot this May.

Hitesh Agarwal PGP 14 married Nikita Garg early this year.

Shashank Kumar GMITE 08 authored a book on Project Management, “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail”.

Sunil Mishra PGP 95 released his new book titled “Return of the Hypotenuse, Einstein, Newton and Archimedes” - a potent combo of poetry, science and maths.

Dr. Pralok Gupta FPM 11 published two books

- ‘Globalization of Legal

Services and Regulatory

Reforms: Perspectives and

Dynamics from India’ and

‘India-EU People Mobility:

Historical, Economic and

Regulatory Dimensions’

AUTHORS OF IIMB

TAKEN for this life

Sanjay Koppikar FTGMP 04 has

published a book titled

“Bangalored”. The book

is a fictional account of

how the water problems

of Bangalore will drive

its people to misery and

what fate awaits

us in 2020.

OBItuAry

With great sadness we inform you the sad demise of Ajit Pandey PGP 83 this April. He served as Head - Asset Risk Management in Det Norske Veritas in UAE. M S Rajagopalan PGP 83 writes in his memory – “Ajit Pandey was from IIT-D and IIMB. His chosen field was oil and petrochemicals area and he spent his career working for a handful of companies in India and abroad, including ONGC and Larsen & Toubro. His last assignment was with an oil exploration MNC in UAE. Ajit had been battling 4th stage cancer and kidney deterioration for over a year and ultimately succumbed on 8th April 2015. Ajit Pandey (‘Pondy’ as he was called by his classmates) was a truly easy-going person with a quiet and soothing presence and a perceptive eye. His smiling face is etched in our memory forever. RIP, dear Pondy.”

Manjunath Legal Battle - How our alumnus and his wife steered the path to justice

“I want justice for my son. But we are poor people. Who will help us?”, that’s what Manjunath Shanmugam’s parents achingly said, after their son’s murder - an alumnus of IIM Lucknow. Manjunath was a Grade-A officer at IOCL, who on finding adulteration in a petrol pump at Lakhimpur Khiri, Uttar Pradesh, ordered it to be shut-down. On November 9, 2005, Manjunath was shot dead by the owner of the pump and his aides.

The news stirred outrage in the IIM community. This thought became the crux of a nine-year long fight for justice, initiated by Jaishankar, an IIMB alumnus from the PGP 91 batch and his wife Anjali Mullatti, an IIML alumnus from the 1993 batch. Jai and Anjali, who never knew Manjunath in person, formed the Manjunath Shanmugham Trust in 2006 to fight the case. Mobilising support within and outside the IIM community, ensuring media attention and persistently following up the legal battle – they created a movement that ensured justice was done. With great support from the police, lawyers and IIM students, they kept the movement alive. At the end of the tunnel, justice was upheld - all accused have been found guilty and convicted with life imprisonment. We salute the couple and all other nameless supporters who made this happen.

Ashok Kumar (Ashok Kallarakkal) FPM 94 passed away this May. He suffered a cardiac arrest at a hospital in Bangalore. He was a Strategy and Product Management expert. He worked in several IT companies including IBM. Ashok has authored two books after taking a break from IBM. His first book, a collection of short stories - ‘Curiosity Kills Katha’ received good reviews. Ashok’s second book, ‘Pallette of Love’ was released a few months ago. We express our heartfelt condolence to Ashok’s family and friends.

IIM Americas announces registration for Pinnacle 2015 with the theme ‘The Network Effect’. Look forward to scintillating speeches

by top-notch speakers, thought-provoking panel discussions and interactive discussions with the movers and shakers of Silicon Valley.

CLASS NotES


get your aluMni id

card

connect with fellow

aluMni

get your aluMni eMail

id

Mentor your Junior

students

coMe down to recruit

your Juniors

connect with your

professors

update us when you

Move cities

register yourself on our website

update on what’s

happening in your life

update on what’s


participate in anusMaran, our global

aluMni Meet

tell us how we can

strengthen our coMMunity

write for our website -

www.iiMbaa.org

write for the iiMb aluMni

MagaZine

inspire your batch Mates to stay connected

write to us - aluMni@iiMb.

ernet.incelebrate

your reunions

coMe back to caMpus connect

with your city aluMni

chapter

contribute to iiMb’s future

initiatives


stay connected!

alumni chaPtersBangalore Harish Mittal PGP 88

[email protected]

Mumbai Nityanand Shenoy PGP 87

[email protected]

Delhi Vineet Kshirsagar PGP 95

[email protected]

Kolkata Sujoy Kanti Dutta PGP 11

[email protected]

Chennai Madhusudan C P PGP 93

[email protected]

Hyderabad Srinagesh Talatam PGP 87

[email protected]

Pune Shailendra Goswami PGP 77

[email protected]

London

Gajendra Ramteke PGP 98

[email protected]

New York Ranjit Bawa PGP 01

[email protected]

get your aluMni id

card

connect with fellow

aluMni

get your aluMni eMail

id

Mentor your Junior

students

coMe down to recruit

your Juniors

connect with your

professors

update us when you

Move cities

register yourself on our website

update on what’s


update on what’s


participate in anusMaran, our global

aluMni Meet

tell us how we can

strengthen our coMMunity

write for our website -

www.iiMbaa.org

write for the iiMb aluMni

MagaZine

inspire your batch Mates to stay connected

write to us - aluMni@iiMb.

ernet.incelebrate

your reunions

coMe back to caMpus connect

with your city aluMni

chapter

contribute to iiMb’s future

initiatives

Singapore

Anand Rao PGP’81

[email protected]

Hong Kong

Kush Shah

[email protected]

Dubai Alok Agrawal [email protected]

US West Coast Venu Kotamraju PGP 02 [email protected]

Netherlands Saket Gulati PGP 01 [email protected]

Sydney Gerry Pacheco PGP 86 [email protected]

stay connected!

Documents

IIMB Alumni Magazine Summer 2015