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Anuradha Kedia

Class of 2007
Co-founder, The Better India

Previous Occupation: Senior Manager, Valuations and Consulting, Colliers International
 
Present Occupation: Co-founder, The Better India (www.thebettterindia.com)

Sector: Online Media

Work Experience: Nine years in domains of real estate, consulting and online media 

Interests – Professional/Personal: Professional interests include meeting people and organisations who take your breath away with their sincerity and ingenuity and trying to think of ways to help them out. Personal interests are reading, traveling and spending time with my son. 

Tell us about yourself – your profile, recap your professional life after ISB including your career progression
I have a BE (Civil Engineering) from R.V.College of Engineering, Bangalore where I graduated in 2002 with three gold medals. For four years, I worked in the construction and real estate sector, evaluating projects and reporting on their feasibility, best use and projected worth. 

Post ISB, I re-entered the real estate sector in the field of valuation and consulting, drawing on the knowledge I gained in these disciplines from the courses taken at ISB. However, a few years later, I felt the need to do something different and think beyond the conventional. In 2009, I co-founded an online news portal called The Better India (www.thebetterindia.com) along with my husband and ISB batchmate Dhimant Parekh. The Better India is an effort to counter all the negative news in conventional news media today and bring to light unsung heroes and organisations that are making a difference. We are also the media partners of many social events and have become a platform for people to showcase the good things happening all around.

Describe your fondest memory at ISB
Some of the fondest memories are of being awake at insane hours, consuming ridiculous quantities of Maggi and tea, having fun with friends, discovering Hyderabad and all its haunts, and enjoying the parties and even the mess food! On a more serious note, I had a wonderful time interacting with people from different backgrounds and learning about their experiences.

With the knowledge and experience gained at ISB, when looking back, tell us something that you would have done differently while you were a student here?
At ISB, a lot of time and effort is spent in trying to get the highest-paying job. If I was to look back, I would concentrate less on the placements and assignments and more on just imbibing the experience. Indeed, it would be difficult to come across such a combination of esteemed professors from whom one can gain infinite wisdom, dedicated staff from whom one can imbibe good work ethics and a talented set of peers who can pass on a treasure of experiential learning. I now think that had I spent more time just interacting with these people, it would have taken my ISB experience to a whole new level.

In your personal life, how have you changed post-ISB? Do you see yourself doing something differently because you went to ISB? What has left a lasting impression?
 I have gained a lot from my experience at ISB. I met people who were doing a lot of different things beyond managing their careers and this made me think that there are a lot of opportunities for people who want to go beyond the normal routine. The clubs and other activities at ISB opened up many avenues of discussion and imparted perspectives from different people's experiences. At the beginning of the course, we paid a visit to a few government schools in the slums of Hyderabad and spent some time with the children there. That has left a lasting impression on me and in many ways moulded my thoughts since then.

How do you think ISB has contributed to your career growth?
ISB provided a solid foundation in many disciplines such as marketing, new product development and strategic thinking. This has helped me to constantly think of new additions, to keep abreast of new developments in the media and other sectors, to reach out to people and to promote my website. We reach out to more than 50,000 unique visitors a month by word-of-mouth marketing only. In addition, the alumni network has been very supportive and accessible.

If you have to sum up ISB in one word:
World-class 

What are the areas that you can contribute in to ISB?
I would like to bring in a little more perspective among students about the many opportunities out there that are not necessarily related to maximising one's wealth but which can bring in tremendous satisfaction. And this includes the universe of for-profit organisations and social enterprises. Since most of the current students at ISB are the leaders of tomorrow, there is a great need to emphasise on ethics, values and a sense of individual social responsibility.