Previous Occupation: Associate Consultant, i-flex Solutions
Sector: Media and Advertising
Total Work experience: Seven years
Personal interests: Sports, Theatre, Writing

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

Prior to the ISB, I worked with a software company for a couple of years. Though not into software development, my role was typical of a consultative software implementation profile. While doing the same, I always missed the action that the sales and business development folks went though on the client side. The intent of choosing a one year programme and joining the ISB was to transition into a client facing and revenue generating role and this is what ISB helped me achieve. I joined IBM in the leadership sales program after the ISB. Since graduating from the ISB, I have been in revenue generating sales/business development role in various capacities. So, in effect, ISB helped me transition from a typical software profile to a very exciting and rewarding market facing sales profile.

What was your key take away from the ISB?

I would place a lot of emphasis on the classroom experience at the ISB. I am an engineer, from BITS Pilani and typically in our college, attendance wasn’t compulsory and therefore I hardly attended any classes. But at the ISB, in our time, though attendance wasn’t compulsory, yet I always made it a point to attend classes. I think the key takeaway is the faculty and the classroom experience. And by virtue of that, the learning that we had at the ISB was tremendous. As you step into the corporate world, you typically tend to forget what was taught in the classrooms. However, the ISB experience was so impactful and relevant that it became quite intuitive to link real world problems back to the class room.

What is your vision for the School?

The reason I joined the ISB was because it represented itself as an International school which would put India on the global map. So I invested in the ISB in the third year of its existence because I was very sure that ten or twenty years down the line it would be a school to reckon with on a global platform. And I hope the school ends up there. It is already ranked 12 in the Financial Times ranking. But more than the ranking I think we should also do a lot of introspection and get the right mix and quality of students. And when we say that we are an international school, we should also have a very high quality international intake and by virtue of that high quality international jobs too. I think that will gradually happen as we mature and grow as a school. So that is my vision. ISB is already on the world map but it needs to establish itself as an International school in its true spirit and sense.

What are the strengths that the School can leverage upon?

I think the strengths of the school are the strong curriculum and the faculty. And now that we have a growing alumni network, that has become a strength.

What do you think is the alumni’s role in building the school?

I think as our alum network grows and as the alums themselves grow within their organisations, they will be in a position to influence hiring. So that is one area. They will also be in a position to influence and bring back market realities to the School in terms of industry conferences, speaker series etc. So these are the two easiest ways in which alums can contribute. One is hiring, the other is the industry connect.

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