Yours Gratefully

[DISCLAIMER: Personal & long post]

Tomorrow I will be walking down Ryan Field along with my classmates at Kellogg to collect my MBA degree. One of the 150,000 odd US students to do so this year. A part of a much larger number of Indians across the world. No big deal. True. But it brings to an end a chapter that started nine years back. A chapter from my story, and it will remain incomplete without this post.

It was during my second year at college, I was doing my B. Com or undergraduate in Business as they refer to it in other parts of the world, that I wanted to do an MBA. A normal career choice for a moderately bright student like myself. For those not acquainted with the Indian B-school system, at least in the mid-2000s, almost the entire batch of the top schools joined straight from college with no prior work experience. This means that the one annual test day, taken by ~150,000 students then (more than ~200,000 now) pretty much sealed your fate for the year. The top B-schools - the Indian Institutes of Managements (IIMs) had around 3000 seats. If you do the math only 2% of the test takers had a chance of making it.

I started with my MBA preparations during my final year of college and was consistently performing among the top 1%-3%. I knew that with further practice unless I messed things up on the D-Day I had a fair shot at cracking it. It was the third Sunday of November in 2004 and I went to Presidency College, Kolkata for my test. I do not recollect the exact  details but I remember coming out of the exam and calling my parents from a PCO (Public Call Office) booth and telling them it could go either way. The results came out in a month's time and though I had performed better than 95% of the test-takers, it wasn't good enough for an interview call from any of the 6 IIMs.

This is where I will try to but won't do justice to the role my parents played in providing the support and confidence in me. First, it's almost taken for granted that all good Indian students will pursue engineering right after school, whereas I, in spite of always being a good student at school and doing quite well in my school final exams decided to take up Commerce. Just because I wanted to. There was tremendous societal pressure on my parents to "show me the right path" but they protected me from all the noise and asked me to do whatever I wanted, with the confidence that they're with me. This was 3 years prior to the MBA episode. This time around, first there was the setback that I wasn't going to the premier B-Schools. Second, no "good student" worth his/her salt thinks of not doing his/her Masters before joining the workforce. It was during this time that Google, just starting their operations in India, came to our campus. And I made it. Goggles? Web Page? Am I mad? And my parents were being foolish in letting a twenty-one year old take the decisions of his own life. Once again, all they told me was they believed in me and would support me in any decision I took. Even if that meant joining a company with a funny name and brightly-colored child like logo. Gulu (Mom, yeah I know silly!) & Baban (Dad) - I know today you are more excited and happy than I am and so I wanted to congratulate you on the MBA. I have perhaps never mentioned it in a public forum, but  - thank you for being by my side, always. Love you. And love you too MLS (my little sister) for being there.

Google on the other hand I have never shied away from showing my love for, in a very vocal fashion. It was as if Google took over my guardianship from my parents. I can't thank everyone who put their faith in me while at Google - giving me responsibilities far bigger than what my years or experience would have made seem prudent. I was most fortunate to have managers who were far more of mentors than bosses like Neel, Ashish, Sundar, Aliza and Sridhar. Also, a special mention to Shailesh, a fellow Kellogg alum and my manager at Google who instilled the confidence in me to go big. 

Then there were the friends, Anal, Sreejita, Manan, Saurabh, Dushyant, Savio, Arnab and many others who not only believed in me but also spent hours guiding me through the application process, preparing me for the MBA interviews and going over multiple iterations of the essays. And then there was Boudhayan who timed his move to Chicago to perfection and played the greatest host for the year.

December 2010 I received the call from Kellogg, congratulating me on my admission. The past year deserves an entire post and more for itself, all I will say for now is that the MBA was worth every penny of the many I spent on it.

Finally this story will remain irrelevant without the person who sacrificed everything for it. If taking the risk of tying the knot just a few months after her twenty-second birthday was not enough, she actually gave up everything she had - her city she had always lived in, her parents who lived in the same city,  her friends, her lifetime savings and her most cherished job, to fly out with me to an unknown country, without a job or purpose. Just to fulfill my dreams. My newly acquired MBA skills tell me she'll make for a pretty lousy businesswoman working on blind faith and love. Something else tells me I'm covered, for life.  Thanks for everything Veni.

The Kellogg India Business Conference

The following article was published in my Financial Times blog today. Reproducing without any edits.


----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This past weekend we hosted the 18th annual Kellogg India Business Conference. The conference, the first one was held in 1995, is one of the most prominent conferences organised by the student body and attracts some of the most accomplished men and women from corporate India and beyond.

Opportunities Take Flight

Once again this year we had a wide gamut of Indian achievers from a variety of fields including the internet, enterprise software, venture capital, consumer packaged goods and not-for-profit. The conference started early on Saturday morning and was kicked off by a most riveting welcome address by one of Kellogg’s favourite professors – Mohanbir Sawhney.

Prof Sawhney delivering the welcome address

This was followed by a keynote address by Param Uberoi, the chairman of Pernod Ricard, south Asia who retraced his steps from his initial days in the beverage industry and outlined how the market has grown and matured drastically over the years. He regaled the crowd with plenty of anecdotes and insightful observations about not only the beverage industry but also the overall landscape of business in India.

Mr. Uberoi delivering the opening keynote address

This was followed by a panel discussion on financial services in India called “Fuelling a Billion Aspirations”, which was moderated by Navin Chopra. It included Kellogg alumni Rahul Khanna, the managing director of Canaan Partners, India and Jasjit Mangat, director, investments, Omidyar Network India Advisors, as well as K B Chandrasekar, the founder and chief executive of Asia Bridge Capital and Amitabh Chaudhry, the managing director and chief executive of HDFC Standard Life.

A wide variety of subjects were discussed including the exit strategies of venture capitalists in Indian start-ups and how and when should Indians working overseas decide to return to their home country.

The finance panel in progress

After the panel discussion the audience was enthralled by a passionate speech from Abraham George, the founder and chairman of The George Foundation, who has been working hard for many years to try to improve the lot of the underprivileged in India. He moved the assembled audience with his statistics about the real impact of poverty in India and discussed various ways in which everyone can make a difference and contribute towards a brighter, more egalitarian future for the nation.

Abraham George delivering his keynote speech

The afternoon session started with the social innovation competition that saw four student teams, three from Kellogg and one from NYU’s Stern School of Business, present their ideas about solving certain issues in India. These ranged from insurance and the availability of seeds, to iron-rich nutritional biscuits for mothers to tackle the problem of iron deficiency in Indian women.

Further ideas were investing in various kinds of skill development among the large population through a modified private equity fund and shared tractors, along the lines of the car sharing business model in the west. After an hour of intense presentation and gruelling question and answer sessions with the jury of professors and speakers at the conference, UpSkill Capital won first prize, followed by iNsure. They received $10,000 and $5,000 respectively as a team and they plan to invest these amounts in their venture ideas and bring them to fruition.

UpSkill Capital - the winning team in the Social Innovation Competition

Bharat Goenka, co-founder and managing director of Tally Solutions delivered the next keynote speech and won over the audience with his stories of the hurdles he initially faced before the success of one of India’s best known software brands. He also made a strong impact by firstly highlighting the issues that India faces as a country today, but also pointing out that nevertheless it is poised to take off as the biggest economic superpower in the coming years.

Bharat Goenka delivering his keynote speech

The final session of the conference was a panel discussion on entrepreneurship in India which was moderated by Rashmi Bansal, the best-selling author of entrepreneurial stories (Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish). The panel consisted of some of the young achievers of online India – Anupam Mittal, the founder and chief executive of People Group (the parent company of brands such as shaadi.com, makaan.com etc) and Neetu Bhatia co-founder, chairman and chief executive of KyaZoonga.

Bharat Goenka was also on the panel and discussed the opportunities available to those who want to make a start in the world of Indian entrepreneurship. Lots of personal experiences were shared by the panelists and by the end of the session it seemed as if many in the audience were motivated to move back to India and start off on their own!

Rashmi Bansal moderating the entrepreneurship panel

The Entrepreneurship Panel in progress

The highly energetic and inspiring day was brought to a close by a well-attended networking session with the students and other members of the audience getting to spend some quality time with the various speakers and panelists.

And finally a note of thanks to the conference leadership committee who worked very hard for months to put it together and deliver a most engaging event.

The India Business Conference Leadership Team

The Halfway Mark

The following article, capturing my first couple of months at Kellogg, was published in my Financial Times blog today. Reproducing without any edits.

________________________________________________________

This morning I received a call from a new admit who’s recently received his Kellogg offer, and has the same doubts that I had when I reached out to my Kellogg buddy around this time last year. The call made me realise that we’re past the halfway mark and have a little less than five months remaining of what has been an exceptionally fulfilling year.

We’re a few weeks into the winter quarter and Jacobs (the main building of Kellogg, named after Donald Jacobs who dean from 1975-2001) seems like a repeat of the fall semester, with students walking about purposively with CVs and ensuring their hair is in place before entering the interview rooms.

This time it’s mostly the first years looking for internships for the summer. Of course this is accompanied with hours of preparation, often with the final year students who’ve been there and done that recently. I can’t stress enough the collaborative culture at Kellogg. Just glad to have been able to be a part of it. It provides you with an opportunity to experience everyone’s successes and also share your lessons with your classmates.

Of course I cannot write a post on Kellogg and Evanston in January without mentioning the snow! Those who’ve been following the column for sometime know how I had never seen snow and was eagerly awaiting the white blanket.

I’m told it’s been a very mild winter by Chicago standards but we have had two-three days of continuous snowfall, which left this scenic suburb looking like a fairyland. A slippery one though.

We also had the annual Kellogg marketing conference earlier this month. The sell out crowd of

 over 500 were thoroughly engaged by the keynote speakers – Mark Addicks, chief marketing officer of General Mills and Alfredo Gangotena, chief marketing officer of MasterCard.

The day also included some highly stimulating conversations on the different panels on brand perception turnaround, creating dialogue with consumers: value co-creation and changing the game, mobile marketing (moderated by the superstar Prof Sawhney) and others.

#kmc12, the chosen hashtag for the conference was making frequent appearances in all our Twitter timelines.

I have to end the post on the epic basketball game played between Kellogg & Chicago Booth prior to the Chicago Bulls V Milwaukee Bucks NBA match at the United Center.

It was an incredible experience to watch our classmates playing on the same court as Derrick Rose and others. Our boys made the evening that much memorable by giving us a 15-10 win over our friends from the city!

KWEST - Around The World In 7 Days

The following article, capturing my first couple of months at Kellogg, was published in my Financial Times blog today. Reproducing without any edits.

________________________________________________________

In late August around 750 Kellogg students and their joint ventures (more commonly known as partners in the rest of the world) left on 35 trips to countries from Australia to Zanzibar and everywhere in between. This was a part of the annual Kellogg tradition of Kwest (Kellogg Worldwide Experiences & Service Trips). These trips are voluntary and although they not a part of the curriculum an overwhelming majority of students take part.

Each trip is led by about 5 second year students, following their summer internship. The idea being to help the incoming batch of students to get to know each other in an informal environment. Students have non-stop fun for a week, while at the same time helping the local community, – cleaning the streets of Florence, painting a swing in a school in Punta Cana or building homes in Nicaragua. During this period participants are not allowed to mention the country/state they are from, or their education and professional background until the ‘big reveal’ during the trip! It’s absolutely amazing seeing everyone trying their best to second guess each other’s stories and mostly failing miserably!

My wife and I were a part of the trip to the Dominican Republic and I am at a loss to know where to start and what to include in this post about one of the most memorable weeks of our lives. From the moment the 26 of us, groggy eyed at 3am boarded the bus from Evanston to Chicago Midway airport until we returned home a week later it was a blur of activities, food, parties, beaches, buggy rides, playing with school kids and what not. It was quite literally a bunch of strangers getting on a flight and going to an exotic island to come back with some friends made for life.

We stayed in Punta Cana, an eastern beach town of the Dominican Republic. The trip leaders did a fabulous job of ensuring everything was taken care of down to the minutest details. Unfortunately they couldn’t account for Hurricane Irene which decided to pass over the Dominican Republic in the middle of our trip. But we were not a bunch to be easily deterred, so when we couldn’t hit the beaches or the pools we ended up conducting a hotly contested quiz competition and a highly animated game of charades!

The week included a mini-golf tournament and of course was peppered with some of the most delicious meals available on the island of Hispaniola.

The highlight of our trip has to be the Xtreme buggy tour where we drove six, stripped to the bone Volkswagen Beetles, through the rough, wet, interiors of the island into its rural pockets and mines and quarries.

The weather was on our side and pumped up the adventure level by opening up the skies while we were in the middle of nowhere. The drive through the heart of Punta Cana in the blinding rain and the water splashing all over us was an experience of a lifetime!

We visited a small public school, run by a local, not-for-profit body and spent a day with pupils painting a newly installed swing. 

Although most of the children spoke only Spanish and most of us English, it was remarkable how quickly and effortlessly we bonded.

We all returned from our various trips and our social networking streams are brimming with updates and photos of Finland, Belize, Ecuador, Croatia and dozens of other place. There are also frequent notifications of ‘…is now friends with ….and 10 others’.

Of Added Value, Lakeside BBQs And More

The following article, capturing my first couple of months at Kellogg, was published in my Financial Times blog today. Reproducing without any edits.

__________________________________________________________________________________

Before I reached this pleasant university town of Evanston I had heard a lot about the ‘global exposure’ that a Kellogg MBA provides. However it wasn’t until the 86 of us, from 26 different countries, were put in a room that the word ‘diversity’ assumed a real form. We have an ophthalmologist, an Olympic participant, a few that have served their national armies, some entrepreneurs, a fruit marketer and a fruit exporter (they had a lot of notes to exchange), a Jeopardy champion and a crazy, funny Belgian, as well as a host of equally fascinating people among us.

Suhel Banerjee in class

Classes started where our undergrad ones had finished, conveniently forgetting the fact that most of us had lost all touch with books for at least five years! The first few weeks were spent in trying to keep terms such as “added value” and “value added” at arm’s length from each other.

We learnt how a fat boy in a hike is actually a bottleneck in a manufacturing operations process and spent time in malls taking notes of how different brands organise their clothes in stores, as well as paying attention to the distinct sounds and smell in every store. The one woman in our team of three was of the opinion that we spend a few days instead of hours in the store for best observations. She was overruled.

Personally the highlight has been that I now have friends from all over the world, including countries such as Venezuela, Slovakia and Peru, places which I mostly associated with the soccer world cup and Miss World pageants. Oh, and of course the food! How could I forget the lakeside barbecues.

This past weekend we organised a ‘Global Food Festival’ where we had food stalls from India, Korea, Israel, France, Brazil, Chile, Holland and many other countries. All the food was prepared by the students and their partners and what an evening it was! Takeaway from the evening, the Brazilians get quite mad if you call their mojitos anything but caipirinhas!

The August 2011 global cuisine festival

It’s almost surreal that we’ve already completed two months of our one-year programme, and with the end of the first quarter coming up this week we are almost quarter MBAs!

Looking forward to the coming months, and am shocked to find out that what is described as summer here in Chicago, is what is described as a mild winter in most places of India.