• IIM Calcutta to introduce ‘Citi Woman Leader Award’
• ISBs initiative for Indian B School Faculty
• SP Jain’s students selected for 40th St. Gallen Symposium
• Rajdeep Sardesai Addresses TAPMI Fraternity
• Finale of Unleash the CEO within you held at EASB, Pune

IIM Calcutta to introduce ‘Citi Woman Leader Award’ for meritorious women students

Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta (IIM C) has come up with a new initiative by Citigroup that from the forthcoming academic session a new award entitled Citi Woman Leader Award would be given to the meritorious women students. This will be in the form of a scholarship. This has been announced by the current Acting Director, Professor Anup Sinha during his speech on the occasion of International Womens Day held on March 8, 2010 at the campus. Students, faculty, and staff members participated in an interactive event presided over by a panel consisting of Professor Anup K Sinha, Professor Annapurna Shaw, Professor Manisha Chakrabarty, and Chief Administrative Officer, Shri Dinesh Varma.

The evening commenced with an address by Varma. He spoke of the increasing participation of women across the spectrum in public life, and the greater heights that Indian women have reached in their respective fields, for example Honble President of India, Chairperson of UPA government, Speaker of the Lok Sabha and sports personalities like Sania Mirza and Saina Nahiwal. He also assured the women stakeholders of the campus of the institutes commitment to better facilities and support mechanisms.

Varma was followed by Professor Sinha, who opened his bilingual address with a poignant summary of the portrayal of women in Bengali arts and culture. He stressed that despite making significant progress, there remains much to be done to bring women up to the point where they can realize their potential and make full and effective use of the opportunities provided to them.

Professor Shaw of the Public Policy group at IIM Calcutta then took the stage and gave an informative lecture on ‘Poor Womens Access to Education’. She nominated female education as the driver behind good health and nutrition, better childrens education, smaller family size, and higher family status; and emphasized that higher literacy among women is the key to achieving a better quality of life in a country like ours. Prof. Shaw compared statistics in India with those of countries such as Kenya, Uganda, Myanmar, and Vietnam; where income per head is lower, but womens literacy rates are higher (87% of Vietnamese women are literate as compared to men). In India, adult womens literacy level is low in absolute figures as well as relative to mens literacy.

The reasons for this state of affairs, Professor Shaw noted, are manifold gender-based inequality, occupation of the girl child in domestic chores, low school enrolment, low school retention rates, and obvious socioeconomic disparities. While she acknowledged programs such as the National Literacy Mission and Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan, she stressed the importance of their effective implementation; and also pointed out that initiatives such as JNNURM and SJSRY do not provide urban education for women. As it is, many corporation schools in urban areas are pushed to closure due to lack of maintenance. Prof. Shaw ended her lecture by outlining easy ways through which we can assist in the advancement of Indian women; such as taking an interest in female domestic workers and their education, supporting NGOs that provide education to the poor, and being vocal in support of measures to increase representation of women in public spheres of life.

The evening ended with a lecture on ‘Women Then & Now: Evidence from the Indian Labour Market’, presented by Professor Manisha Chakrabarty of the Economics group of IIM Calcutta. She discussed the impact of services-led economic growth on the status of women in the workforce. Using National Sample Survey data from the years 1987-88, 1999-00, and 2004-05, she demonstrated that traditional male dominance at the societal level was significantly mitigated by the post-liberalization growth of the services sector, since it provided an arena in which men and women were provided similar opportunities. Key points to note from Professor Chakrabartys presentation were the increased participation of women in the workforce from 1987-88 to 1999-00, and also the narrowing of the gender earnings gap. These trends however, seemed to reverse somewhat by 2004-05, a cautionary sign that things may have improved but that we must give ourselves a periodic reality check.

ISBs initiative for Indian B School Faculty

The Indian School of Business (ISB), Hyderabad recently organised a workshop for faculty members from leading Business Schools in India or March 10, 2010. This was the first event as part of the initiative by the ISB to introduce cutting edge practices in management education across B schools in India. The workshop was in the area of Marketing Analytics, and had over fifty faculty registrants from across 25 leading B-Schools in the country.

Speaking on the need to enhance the quality of management education in India, Ajit Rangnekar, Dean, ISB, said, India will need many more high quality management graduates to sustain its high growth, and also to make it inclusive. To do this, what we need is collaboration, not competition, so that Indian management education wins, and as a consequence, all of us do. We are making this investment with the conviction that it will produce positive returns for Indian management education, and ultimately, raise the standards of all Indian B schools.

The participants in the workshop comprised marketing faculty members from several Indian Business schools including IIMs, SPJIMR, BITS Pilani, IRMA, IIFT, IMT Ghaziabad, among others. They spent the entire day at the ISB exploring innovative techniques that could enhance their teaching delivery. A great initiative by the ISB to help the teaching fraternity in India, remarked Dr Mridula S. Mishra, Assistant Professor, Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (IIFT), New Delhi. Echoing this sentiment, Dr Saji Nair, Professor of Marketing at IIM Lucknow said The workshop provided a wonderful opportunity to walk through the many possibilities in teaching analytical marketing.

Professor Arun Pereira, Head – Initiative for Excellence in Teaching and Learning, ISB said India has the potential to become the destination of choice for management education tomorrow, if we take the right steps today. After all, the vast majority of growth markets are in this part of the world, and it will be in everybodys interest that India becomes home to top quality B schools. He added, The ISB will continue to organise such workshops that will act as a forum for faculty to imbibe global best practices, collaborate, network, and share their classroom experiences.

The workshops will vary in scope, and address different aspects of management education, from classroom content to delivery. Workshops planned include those in case teaching and simulations, as well as those in the functional topics, such as the just-concluded workshop on marketing analytics.

SP Jain students selected for 40th St. Gallen Symposium

Rohit Khurana,Raman Agarwal and Pranab Kumar Jha of PGP1 (Batch of 2011) from S P Jain Institute of Management and Research, Mumbai have been selected for participation in the 40th St. Gallen Symposium, Switzerland , comprising of young students and researchers of leading universities worldwide. It will be a unique chance to discuss important issues of our time together with 600 outstanding personalities from the fields of business, politics, science and society, 100 media representatives and 200 selected Leaders of Tomorrow from all over the world.

St. Gallen Symposium is the worlds leading platform for dialogue on key issues in management, the entrepreneurial environment and the interfaces between business, politics and civil society. Every year in May for 40 years, it has brought together a global target group of entrepreneurs, top managers, politicians, academics, decision-makers from civil society and students at the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland, providing an inspirational setting for open, interdisciplinary discussions across boundaries of cultures and generations.

Some of the distinguished speakers who have already confirmed to grace the symposium this year include:

* Dominic Barton, Managing Director, McKinsey & Company, New York

* Umit Boyner, President of the Board of Directors, Turkish Industrialists’ and Businessmen’s Association (TUSIAD), Istanbul

* Paul Bulcke, CEO, Nestle S.A.,Vevey

* James Francis Cameroon, Film director, Lightstorm Entertainment, Santa Morica

* Sanjiv Goenka, President, All India Management Association, New Delhi

* Lord Griffiths of Fforestfach, Vice Chairman, Goldman Sachs International, London

* Nasser M. Al Kharafi, President, Mohammed Abdulmohsin Al-Kharafi & Sons, Kuwait

* John Kornblum, Former United States Ambassador to Germany, Berlin

* Christine Lagarde, Minister for the Economy, Industry and Employment of France, Paris

* Peter R. Voser, CEO, Royal Dutch Shell plc., London

It is a matter of great pride and honor for the institute that these three students will be interacting with a diverse group of people on the topic Entrepreneurship and the Power of Innovation.

Rajdeep Sardesai Addresses TAPMI Fraternity

Rajdeep Sardesai,Editor-in-chief, CNN-IBN and renowned journalist, delivered a lecture on Customer Orientation and Objective Journalism to the students of management and journalism in Manipal. This lecture, organized by T. A. Pai Management Institute (TAPMI),Manipal was the second of the Silver Jubilee Leadership Lecture Series,commemorating TAPMIs 25 years of excellence in management education. This initiative is to nurture future leaders by providing a platform to the young business minds to interact with the great leaders of today.

Dr Ramdas M Pai (Chancellor, Manipal University), Dr Simon George (Dean-Academics,TAPMI) were present on the occasion along with management students and faculty of TAPMI and Manipal University. Sardesai began his lecture by saying that media and journalism represent the possibilities that exist in our country and highlighted the transformation that television journalism has undergone in the last decade. He called todays 24 hour News channels, a gigantic beast of journalism that needs to be constantly fed. He contrasted this with the situation during the early nineties, when the government had a virtual monopoly on the News. Today, there are more than 120 News channels across the country! This, he said, has led to increase in the quantity of news and erosion in its quality which gives the people and the politicians an opportunity to condemn the media for any and every misfortune that befalls them.

Sardesai said that 24 hour news channels have changed the rules of the game. He spoke of how the impact of a catastrophe, like an earthquake or a tsunami, is made instantly and helps bring in more aid to the affected. He cited the examples of Latur and Gujarat earthquakes, and the 1993 Mumbai blasts and 26/11 to show how the media plays an important role in the dissemination of information and shaping public opinion.

He elaborated on the shortcomings of sting journalism and said that it focuses more on petty crimes by small government servants. Instead, he said, it should be used to bring to light larger scams perpetrated by politicians and corporate corruption.

While addressing the challenges being faced today by the media, Mr. Sardesai said that it is easier to expose malpractices and corruption in politics than in the corporate world because of their acceptance and encouragement by news companies. Another challenge that he mentioned was that while ethics was crucial to journalism, it is not being taken up by journalism schools and hence makes it difficult for young journalists to do the right thing.

Sardesai called the audiences attention to the changing landscape of television journalism. He called it a TRP world where news channels would go to any length to get the highest numbers because of the intense competition amongst channels. He said that because of the reduced attention span of the audience, only the loudest attract the most viewers. In their effort to get noticed, these channels resort to unsavoury and irrelevant programmes.

Finale of Unleash the CEO within you held at Europe Asia Business School

Whats it really like to be a CEO? How do the best CEOs lead the country today? What does it take to transform a young professionals aspiration to become a CEO into reality? All this and much more were answered in the much awaited grand finale of Unleash the CEO within you at Europe Asia Business School, Pune on March 7, 2010.

Unleash the CEO within you campaign started with an intention to offer an opportunity to young aspiring CEOs to prove their mettle in front of the existing leaders of the industry. The purpose was to discover new paradigms in leadership and manifest them into social and economic systems helping the young minds to carve their own niche.

The first phase started one and half months back with more than 2000 online and offline registrations across the country. Short listed 320 then qualified for the case study round and finally 70 young working professionals battled it out on Sunday at EABS Campus for the title of EABS Star Future CEO

The Aspiring CEOs who won the title of star debated various realities of shaping the world that will help them understand to be successful in the coming years. A portfolio of each leader was created, their upbringing, what motivates them, and how they actually lead their businesses was charted out. We then looked at the finer nuances of how CEOs measure success, the situations and industries in which they foray into, and their SWOT analysis. A Pharma graduate, Parth sheth from Bangalore bagged a lakh cash prize along with the title. Runners-up were Manu Jindal, BE, a teacher by profession, Pune, Sumeet Kohli, BSc Comp. Graduate, from Insurance, each whom won Rs 20,000 in cash along with sponsorship from EABS for the same while Abhishek Mittal, IIM-B 1st yr student, Bangalore was among the finalists.

The Jury Panel comprised Dr Ganesh Natarajan, CEO Zensar Technologies, Dr Uma Ganesh, CEO Global Talent Track, Pradeep Bhargava, MD, Cummins Generators, Major Ashok Kaul, Former CEO RK Films,S S Sundarajan, Altius Technologies, Dilip Thomas Ittyera, CEO Aikon Labs Pvt.Ltd, Arijit Sengupta, CEO Beyond Core However, also had stalwarts from the Corporate as well as the Media like Padmini Sundaram, VP HSBC, Sanjay Adhicary, Senior VP AXA, Kundan Singh Rawat, regional GM HR Amtek Auto, Shriram Shinde, Editor Sakaal Times and Captain Anil Dhankher, CEO & Founder at Talent Interventions & Strategic Solutions (TISS)

It was an event that gave each & everyone a helping hand up the corporate ladder. It taught that there is a need for more than skill and knowledge about a business to succeed. The top leaders arent just born with all the secret ingredients of success, they learn these secrets the hard way while climbing up the rungs of the corporate ladder.

To compliment the entire event, Coffee with CEO was organized on a weekly basis where aspirants leveraged on years of rich experience of noteworthy CEOs. This tete a tete was informal and brought about some vivid CEO coaching experiences to the table. It helped the candidates discover insightful and practical solutions to the everyday leadership challenges encountered in the corporate world.