IE is a truly amazing business school. The school breathes entrepreneurship. Here it’s not a cliché when I say that the only limitation is ones initiative and energy. Introducing an innovative project or even a specialization can happen within a period of months. We try various things, some tend to be successful, and some are lessons we learn quickly. Considering this is not the norm for traditional educational institutions, we run like a start-up. There’s always something happening at IE, one soon learns that the challenge is keeping track of all of it and prioritizing what to do.

Your Alma Mater

The last few institutions where I have graduated from are University of California, Irvine; S.P. Jain Institute of Management & Research in Mumbai and College of Engineering, Trivandrum. Each of these have been very different in both content and style.

Your Current Research Activity

Currently I am working on a project that looks at organizations that have engaged in IT outsourcing in the last 20 years. I map who outsources information technology services to whom and make predictions on how this network of partners affects outsourcing contract terms. It is quite interesting that with a great degree of accuracy it can be shown that firms with greater connections tend to enter into longer term contracts. These contractual connections therefore act as a mechanism to signal reputation.

Your Area of Interest

Moving to Madrid from California, I was concerned that I would miss hiking and camping in the mountains. It turns out that Madrid offers plenty of opportunity to hike, backpack and bike. The long daylight hours of summer and the cloudless skies in the winter are just perfect for being outdoors. I try to hike at least every other weekend.

Awards

The Microsoft award (Cash Prize – $5000) by International Network for Social Network Analysis for my paper “Social Networks and Contract Enforcement in IT Outsourcing”.

The De Sanctis award for best single-authored paper based on a dissertation at the OCIS division of Informs (Cash Prize – $250).

Future Plans at IE

Our program already includes international immersion weeks, exchange opportunities, hands on projects with companies, executive speaker series, career immersion programs, job prep workshops, language lessons etc.But we need to do more. We are currently bringing out a practice-oriented specialization working with a leading advertising agency to help students launch their careers in advertising and communications. To stay competitive in the long run we are experimenting with MOOCs, flipped classes, classroom data analytics.

One Tip for Indian Students

Learn Spanish. There really is no excuse not to. In fact, start learning Spanish the day you decide to come to IE. It’s easy to get by the whole program without being able to speak a word of Spanish, which makes it all the more important to be committed to learning it. That is by far the easiest way to distinguish yourself as you apply for jobs whether in Latin America, Spain, US or back in India.