Sushant Dutt
Class of 2005
Cognizant Technology Solution
General Manager - Head of BD and Stategic Persuits

Previous Occupation: Manager & Sr.Engineer with GE Consumer and Industrial Systems for 5 years, prior to that 2 years with Larsen & Toubro Ltd in heavy engineering
Present Occupation: General Manager - Head of BD and Stategic Persuits for CTS
Sector: Business Process Services
Work Experience: 12.5 years
Interests – Professional/Personal: Writing, Trying different Cusines, Equity Trading, Photography...and more importantly Networking

Tell us about yourself – your profile, recap your professional life after the ISB including your career progression

I am a mechanical engineer and started my career with Larsen & Toubro Ltd in 1997, It took me an year and a half to realise that spending the whole night sitting next to a furnace at 120 Degrees and doing underwater-welding is not what I should be doing. I then moved to GE in product design & engineering and got engaged in some state-of-art work using fly-by-wire technology. Post that, I moved to engineering services and eCommerce before joining the ISB.

Post ISB, GECIS provided me the platform for business leadership and I moved to China to set up the operations in JAPAC for re-engineering consulting and ITO sales and I also set up the global GTM strategy for SEP, a product owned by Genpact

Today, I lead the BD and strategic pursuit team with Cognizant Technology Services for Enterprise services covering Retail, Travel, Hospitality, Media, Communications and Consumer goods.

What was your key take-away from the ISB?

In addition to academics, my focus during the year in the ISB was primarily to understand the perspective of professors, peers and industry leaders and constantly validate the relevance of the same to what I wanted to do post ISB. My biggest effort was to develop my network, which is now providing the highest equity.

How do you think the ISB has contributed to your career growth?

The most satisfactory part of my career after the ISB is that I am creating new jobs for people and society. Prior to the ISB, I was the receiver of jobs created by someone else.
Growth post ISB has been accelerated – within just 6 months of tangible performance, I was asked to go to China and setup the process consulting practice P&L. Post that, I was given the charge of Business development for JAPAC then as Client partner for ITO. All the positions came with high risk and reward and stood to the expectations of an ISB graduate

What is your vision for the School?

I definitely want to see the School ranked in the top 6 in the Financial Times ranking.

What are the strengths that the School can leverage upon and areas it can improve?

The biggest strength, I can think of is the association with top B-Schools, the academic structure, professors who contribute to the curriculum and the schools ability to convey the power of best minds in addition to the best programme to the prospective recruiter.

I still think lot more can be done on business development, especially recruitment, there are plenty of contacts within the alumni group which can be leveraged

What role do you think alums can play in building the School?

The professional success of Alums has direct impact to the branding of the school and hence their contribution. Being much closer to Industry and professional organisations across the world, Alums have the onus of bringing to the campus the networks, equity and the knowledge from outside the campus