New Beginnings

It has been a few days since I have moved to a new city(Hyderabad) and a new assignment. Nayanta University is an ambitious education project backed by a stellar founding team. The founding members include Naushad Forbes , Kris Gopalakrishnan , Meher Pudumjee, Nadir Godrej , Ramesh Mangaleswaran , Satish Reddy , Bharat Puri , Raj D. , Pankaj Chandra , Ashok Misra . Many of the founders have held leadership positions at CII, and the venture is strongly supported by CII.

I have joined this ‘start up’ as the founding Vice Chancellor. While I have taught previously at Ashoka University, it marks a foray beyond the post graduate and business school domain. There is much to learn and do, and I am looking forward it.

This implies the end of an eight and a half year phase at the helm of two wonderful business schools. SPJIMR, a very good institute which is well on the way to greatness, and BITSoM, an agile start up which has made remarkable progress in a very short time

At both institutes, I was fortunate to have great teams and strong relationships with multiple stakeholders. There have been many farewells in the recent past, and I know that I have a lot to be grateful for. In many ways, I will remain an alumnus of both institutes, and for the rest of my life, students who have passed through these institutes in my time will know that they can reach out and there will be a friendly voice at the other end of the line.

I had a hypothesis when I entered business school leadership. That hypothesis was simply this: if an education leader is genuinely accessible to multiple stakeholders (students, faculty, staff, alumni, corporate partners, visiting faculty etc) , then that accessibility creates a set of champions for the institute, both inside and outside. A lot of things then happen because of culture and momentum. At both SPJIMR and BITSoM, I have seen this happen.

Special thanks are due to people who believed in me at the very outset, well before I believed fully in myself. Deepak Parekh and Srikant Datar took a punt on an academic outsider, and put him in charge of one of the country’s strongest business schools. They continue to be mentors and well wishers, and I am forever indebted to them.

At BITSoM, I had the fortune to interact regularly with  Kumar Mangalam Birla. There was so much to learn from the way he relates to people. He had the unique ability to review an operation in a completely conversational way. I went through a family crisis during my time at BITSoM, and his human touch in that phase was something I will always remember.

Debu Bhattacharya and Dilip Gaur were guides, mentors and friends, and they helped me to acquire a new muscle in dealing with multiple ambiguous and unexpected situations. I know they will be mentors for life.

There are two other people whose role needs special acknowledgement.

The late Dr Manesh Srikant laid the foundation of SPJIMR. Whatever we achieved together at SPJIMR in my time was due to the fact that we were walking in the footsteps of a giant. The value foundation of SPJIMR is its most enduring quality, and that is his legacy. In that sense, I owe my career in academic leadership to him. I would rate him in the highest league of business school institution builders in India, and his contribution has not been adequately recognized externally.

At BITSoM, I had the fortune to build the institute with Leena Chatterjee . Not many get the privilege of having a revered teacher as a colleague, and I was twice blessed. For me, she is a friend, colleague, sounding board, mentor and elder sister, all in one. Without her support, I would have found it difficult to recover from a difficult phase in my personal life.

On to Nayanta. There are many things that excite me about this, but I will list just three:

a)     There is a genuine desire to build a truly inclusive class and offer need blind admissions. This will imply reaching out to talented students well before they enter the undergraduate phase, and preparing them on multiple levels. It is an interesting challenge, and an important one.

b)     The CII connect: the profiles of the founding team will enable us to build a strong industry and reality connect within the curriculum. While this is common in professional courses, it will be a first at the undergraduate level.

c)      The following line, extracted from the founding principles of Nayanta resonated deeply with me. “ Quality will take constant precedence over quantity. If meeting a growth target means any compromise in faculty or student selection, growth will be delayed.”

I thank all my friends for the support and goodwill I have received and look forward to new beginnings.

Wishing you a happy new year and interesting times ahead.

P.S The following media articles give a sense of the project:

Nayanta University all set for academic year in 2024   - BusinessLine on Campus (thehindubusinessline.com)

CII’s Nayanta University to get functional this year-end - The Hindu