Previous Occupation: Senior Business Consultant, Banking and Financial Services (GE Capital, American Express and XL Capital)
Present Occupation: Executive Director, Crafts Livelihood Development, (AIACA)
Sector: Handicrafts, Textiles, Rural Development – Livelihood Security
Work Experience: 10 years
Interests – Professional/Personal: Operational Transformation, Programme Management, Development, sustainability, environment, fitness, music and art.

Tell us about yourself - your profile, recap your professional life after ISB including your career progression.
I came to ISB with 8 years of corporate sector experience across GE Capital, American Express and XL Capital. I had been involved in large scale transformation projects and was involved as a consultant, project lead and operations lead in several corporate card, insurance and risk management projects throughout India, US and Europe. During the ISB journey, I got an opportunity through the PAEV module to set into motion some of the longstanding ideas I had regarding providing sustainable livelihood opportunities to the second largest employment sector in India – the Handicrafts and Textiles Sector.

With this mission and objective in mind, I took a lateral leap into this sector and joined AIACA as the Executive Director with the responsibility of providing leadership to its three fold mission - Policy Research and Advocacy, Enterprise (MSME) Consulting and Certification and Marketing of the “Craftmark – Handmade in India” label. As an apex network body of craftworkers, AIACA draws membership of over 100 craft based organizations and represents the interests of 6 million craftworkers across India. Key issues of engagement through our Policy initiatives include Occupational Health and Safety, Environmental protection, Geographical Indicators and the impact of government schemes and policies aimed at the protection and promotion of the handicrafts sector. Enterprise Support Program (ESP) provides consulting services to crafts producer groups to help them institute specific business systems that help build the capacity of enterprises enabling them to scale up their operations and connect to domestic and international markets. The Craftmark label certification is aimed at protecting genuine crafts and promoting them through a certification program.

The exposure and learning that I have got from the last two years in the development sector have transformed my world view and my long term goals both professionally and personally. From my previous professional engagement in project level activities I am now involved in paving the way for sectoral changes. This is a huge personal and professional leap and I credit ISB for not only the excellent academic exposure through world class faculty but also for enabling students through the PAEV module to take forward their entrepreneurial dreams and encouraging some of us to take the giant sectoral leap by way of the Develop India Scholarship.

What was your key take-away from the ISB?
After spending 8 years in the corporate sector, ISB provided me with a perfect opportunity to learn, get excellent academic exposure and think laterally about my future course. The PAEV module at ISB was an important stepping stone that helped me generate new entrepreneurial ideas related to the development sector. Participation in several international competitions such as the GSVC and WJ Foundation helped me fine tune ideas related to social enterprises.
 
How do you think the ISB has contributed to your career growth?
The ISB has helped provide a holistic learning platform to help translate ideas into implementable strategies. The ISB brand has helped me make a lateral transition to a sector of my choice in a strategic leadership role. The professional leap from handling internal projects to managing change and development at a sectoral level is immense, challenging and a giant professional leap.

What is your vision for the School?
ISB should continue to build a credible brand by strengthening entrepreneurship, research and innovation, and by encouraging students to take on socially relevant initiatives and building socially relevant enterprises. Focus on development issues, social enterprises, sustainability, ethics and corporate social responsibility should be incorporated and strengthened. ISB should be able to generate a new league of business students who not only possess excellent hard skills of running a business venture successfully but have the exposure and sensitivity to integrate sustainability, business ethics and social responsibility – issues that dominate our future into their core corporate strategy.

What are the strengths that the School can leverage upon and areas it can improve?
ISB needs to diversify its focus on strategy and finance by including equally important modules such as social businesses, ethics, human resources, development, sustainability, environment and rural management to provide concrete skills to increasingly important areas such as inclusive growth, sustainability and development. This is very important to the Indian economy in the context of developmental objectives which increasingly need the focus and participation of corporates for their attainment and sustainability. It is indeed a pity that 95% of the graduating class’s focus lies in joining foreign investment banks and large consulting corporations while few are sensitized to making a difference in the domestic economy. The few and far between modules such as “Government, Business and Society” unfortunately fail to provide adequate motivation, skills and knowledge in this area.

The school should be wary of diluting the ISB brand image by increasing the class sizes and opening multiple centers. ISB also needs to strengthen the permanent faculty and include India-centric case studies in its teaching modules.

How do you think alums can associate with the School or alum’s role in building the School?
1. Inviting alums to help design/revisit the program modules to ensure appropriateness of modules to the industry and economy needs
2. Inviting alums who have taken less traditional job roles to help diversify student job aspirations and to act as suitable role models
3. Promote alums involved in rural, innovation, social enterprises and development focused roles that are relevant to the inclusive growth of the Indian economy
4. Involve alums in building a development centre of excellence wherein research and initiatives related to key development issues can be undertaken and promoted.

What is the area you can contribute in?
I am happy to help the school build suitable initiatives/ modules/ platforms for students to transition from mainstream corporate sector roles to development-focused roles. I am happy to contribute in any possible manner to the Centre for Emerging Markets Solutions and to any future direction that the school may want to take in the director of building a social/ development focused research/ excellence centre.

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