Getting Started At the Indian School Of Business

No B-school launch could have attracted more attention. As the first batch of students who will get to do an MBA at the Indian School of Business lands in Hyderabad, BT's EK Sharma pumps some flesh to get to know the kind of people who're now on the fast track to becoming the Masters of the Universe. A sampling: one student is a decorated war hero; another a doctor mother.

IBS' first batch: already older and wiser

Radical lesson: A Sumantra Ghoshal session

I've been to Hyderabad's Taj Krishna often enough---an occupational hazard for the itinerant journo---to know something is different. It's 1 in the afternoon of a pleasant late June day, and the gaggle of young people boarding buses in the hotel's parking lot clashes with the quietude that its manicured lawns and gleaming woodwork seem to exude. As I near the scene of the action, I realise that all of them are wearing cards with a royal blue swish on a white background. Better get used to that logo: that's the mark of the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad.

My ruminations are broken by a short bespectacled man with Oriental features in a banker's costume: dark trousers and white shirt. "Andrew Siu Kai Poon," he grins as he pumps my hand. "I'm thrilled to be here". Kai Poon is the only foreign student in the first batch at ISB; he's been nominated and sponsored by Citibank Hong Kong, where he is currently employed as a strategic planning manager in the credit card division. The stint at ISB, he hopes, will help him make a shift to general sales at the bank and, hopefully, see him heading a team. Most students, like Kai Poon, have taken a year's sabbatical to attend the full-time course at the school.

The buses set off for the campus and I manage to hop onto one and, better still, find a seat. Seated next to me is 35-year old Ashish Soni, an assistant general manager at consulting firm Hill & Associates. Soni joined Hill in 1999, after retiring as a major from the Indian Army's crack 21 Special Force (he's served in Sri Lanka and Kargil). My conversation with him---Soni hopes the one year course will hone his skills in risk management---is cut short by a passenger up ahead remarking that the Charminar is in sight. The reference isn't to the four-minaret (that explains the name) 16th century structure built by Hyderabad's then ruler Muhammad Quli Qutib Shah in honour of his queen Bhagmati; it's to the Portman & Associates designed campus with four pillars at the four corners to mark the student hostels and the 'resource centre' with its massive courtyard in the middle. True to its inspiration, the campus incorporates many elements of Mughal architecture: sunscreens, an airflow enhancing building plan, and the use of water channels. If the exterior is old-world, though, the interior is almost futuristic. Each class room is wired for what the school's CEO Pramath Sinha terms 'global connectivity'.

The weeklong orientation programme for students kicks off with a speech by the dean of the school, Sumantra Ghoshal, who makes an appearance in a spotless white T-shirt sporting the ISB logo and casual khakhi trousers. Silence descends on the central courtyard that has been converted into a makeshift hall for the purpose only to be broken by the wailing of an infant who presumably doesn't like gatherings (his mother, a doctor, is part of the batch).

"I give you a minute to think of the most important benefit you will derive from the ISB experience," he tells the assembled faithful. That 60 seconds is followed by 240 more during which the students exchange notes with their neighbours. Then Ghoshal asks the crowd for the most interesting comments they have heard. Most of these echo what my neighbour Aman Bahl, who manages his family's furnishings export business, has listed as the biggest benefit of being in ISB: networking with a bunch of people headed for greater things within their existing organisations or elsewhere.

Ghoshal listens to such remarks for some time, then offers his own counsel: "Some of you will become household names. You will of course make money and gain status, but much more important you will be in a position to use your resources to act as drivers of progress". Given the rigorousness of the selection process---apart from GMAT scores and an interview, it factors in work experience and previous academic record---that can't be dismissed as hyperbole: the 130 students were picked from a total of 1,000 who applied; the average student is 26-years old and has worked for a little over four years; and the average GMAT score of those selected is 690.

The session comes to an end with Sunita Chatta who looks after academic and student affairs detailing the structure of the course. Then, Ghoshal springs a surprise: there's a little case study on Honda's success in the US market they have to discuss the next day...

Who's there. A sampling of student profiles

Apart from those who've made an appearance in the main article, the first batch at ISB has some unlikely students. Like Ashoo Khosla a 30-year old doctor from Shimla who's come with her three-year old daughter to the orientation. "I have the necessary skills in medicine," she says. "Now ISB will be able to help me on the managerial front. The combination will be critical as the healthcare sector matures in India". Khosla's husband, himself an IIM-alum has found a job in Hyderabad to be with his wife. Then there is 38-year old Ajay Srivastav, the deputy director general in charge of foreign trade at the Ministry of Commerce, who believes the course couldn't be more relevant for bureaucrats. "Many professors on the faculty have advised governments abroad, and one can gain insights into that". But the batch isn't just composed of oldies. Tilting the average is Deepa Xavier, a 24 year old who claims to have been the first woman production engineer on the Telco shop-floor (she was also a Miss India semi-finalist in 1996).

The batch also has its share of dotcom flameouts. Like Ravi Yadavili, a 30-year old who has just quit Satyam Infoway (he was portal manager there). "The industry is in the grip of a slowdown and nothing seems to be happening. This is the best time to study".