School of Inspired Leadership (SOIL), Gurgaon is a business school that has been co-created by 30 leading companies from across Industry verticals that believe in SOIL and its value proposition. These firms include Aditya Birla, Dabur, Hindustan Unilever, Infosys, M&M;, TATA Steel and many others. They partner with SOIL to design the curriculum, select the students, discuss case studies, mentor the students and lead the placement process. The developmental processes for a student at SOIL are:

3-4 hours of mentoring every month by a senior industry leader

Each student has an individual mentor who helps the students chart out their career aspirations, identify the areas that they need to focus on and develop the skills needed in the industry that they aspire for. Mentors include Sanjay Gupta, India Leader, American Express; Puneet Bahl, Head Consumer Banking, ABN Amro; Rajit Mehta, COO, Max New York Life Insurance; Arvind Gupta, Managing Partner, Accenture amongst others. Interaction with my mentor has always been excellent. He has been able to identify my improvement areas and has given relevant suggestions. Varun Singh, Student, HRLP

Industry Consortium teaching case studies

Another unique aspect of the SOIL curriculum that students really look forward to is the Company Day. Check out details of the days celebrated with Dabur, Kohler, Max, and TATA Steel on http://www.soilindia.net/events-calender.html.

HR professionals sharing knowledge through the HR Collective Series

A change makers collective body of HR Professionals including Pawan Bhatia, HR Head, Pepsi; Piyush Mehta, HR Head Genpact, Ramanand, HR Head Metlife, etc teach a parallel course to the HR students, bringing all their practical experience and making the learning more comprehensive and inclusive. You can hear Dr. Anuradha Challu, Director HR, PepsiCo share her thoughts at www.youtube.com/soilindia.

Experiences with visiting faculty

SOIL has 4 full time faculty and our visiting faculty includes academicians from international universities such as Stanford, Insead, Kelly School of Business, Carlson Business School and IIM Bangalore.

We also invite consultants who have been practicing in India and abroad as regular visiting faculty – experienced & widely respected in their respective subject areas. Dr. Gary Jusela, Ph.D, Yale University says, I enjoyed the interaction with the students at SOIL. The students are bright and ask insightful questions. I liked the classroom that I used for the course and the seating with the round tables was most conducive to creating natural small groups and facilitating a highly interactive and engaging learning process. Both the staff and the students are of high caliber and a real credit to SOIL’s efforts.”

Working with an NGO one day every week

Students work on projects with NGOs one day every week throughout the year. Working under pressure and without a formal structure to guide them, students have to stick to rigorous timelines, while also dealing with multiple stakeholder interests. Check out our blogs of Jan 15 and Dec 29 at www.soileadership.blogspot.com to hear about our projects with Adharshila and at Kanhai Village respectively.

Learning experiences Leadership Series

Apart from the focus on foundation courses that are taught at other business schools, SOIL has a very industry relevant curriculum that emphasizes strategic thinking and leadership skills. For instance, there is a conscious focus on Inspired Leadership which is facilitated through the medium of Theatre and Performing Arts by Lushin Dubey. Apart from this students have found immense benefit in the Leadership Series where a diverse group of achievers has interacted with them every fortnight and Susie Roys Wellness program as well.

Across the year, through conferences, events, and workshops, SOIL provides every opportunity to students to be a part of the campus community. All in all, SOILs endeavor is to provide every student with an experience that is memorable and life changing.

Selection process that brings out the best in you

Aspirants are also required to submit

• essays on their career aspirations,
• the best project they may have ever worked on among other topics, as well as
• two recommendations.

70 panelists including the likes of R. Sreeram, VP Manufacturing, Dabur, Ravi Nindwani, Director Marketing, Kohler, Somnath Baishya, Corporate HR Head, Infosys Technologies and Radhakrishnan Nair, Chief HR Officer, TATA Steel have participated in SOILs selection process as the Industry Consortium.

SOIL offers three PG courses which are 1-year full time in nature, two of these are the HR Leadership & Marketing Leadership Program – open to graduates as well as working professionals. The third is the Business Leadership Program which requires a minimum of 3 years full time work experience.

(Note: This is a sponsored article and has not been written by the PaGaLGuY Editorial Team. It is intended from an informational perspective only and it is the readers prerogative to research and verify the facts and judgments in the article before reaching a conclusion.)