Meet The Indian Institute Of Management Calcutta MBAEx Class Of 2024

ADVANTAGES OF AN MBAEx DEGREE

The program’s emphasis on experiential learning also made an impression on Neeraj. “The program’s practical approach to learning, complemented by real-world projects, internships, and interactions with industry experts, appealed to me greatly. This focus on hands-on experience allows me to bridge the gap between theory and practice, honing my skills and preparing me to tackle real business challenges effectively.”

Of course, you’ll find the school’s famed ‘Joka’ culture among the biggest attractions to the Class of 2024. “With a wide array of courses, the college brings together diverse minds and experiences to learn from,” explains Chandan Kumar. “What really caught my attention was the Joka culture they spoke about. It’s like a big supportive family, where it’s not just about resumes but people helping each other grow. When I stepped on the campus, that sense of community felt genuine, leading me to choose IIM Calcutta.”

Let’s not forget the school’s Kolkata digs, where students can tap into the country’s third-largest GDP for mentors, partners, and jobs. “IIM Calcutta’s location in this historically and culturally significant city adds a distinct dimension,” adds Chandan Kumar. “It immerses us in the rich tapestry of West Bengal’s heritage and the broader essence of India’s eastern region. Exploring the streets of Kolkata reveals a different facet of life, with its enchanting golden hours during mornings and evenings. The picturesque campus, adorned with seven tranquil lakes, not only captures the eye but also sets a uniquely serene backdrop for our educational journey.”

AN INTERVIEW WITH THE PROGRAM CHAIRPERSON

What are other distinct advantages of the IIM Calcutta MBAEx programme? This fall, P&Q reached out to Dr. Pragyan Rath, the program chairperson. Here are her thoughts on what makes the MBAEx experience so special.

P&Q: What have been the two most important developments in your MBA program over the past year? What type of impact will they have on current and future MBAs?

Rath: “The two most important developments in our one-year MBA program, formally called MBAEx over the past year are as follows:

SheAscends: This is a first-of-its kind Women in Management student vertical that was formalised after years of informal activities that MBAEx students contributed towards women in leadership discourses. They organise Women Leadership Talks as a sub-set of the larger well-known MBAEx-IIMC Speaker Series – where Women Thought Leaders from the industry share their experiences with the cohort. From Fem-Tech to Women-Leads, the contributions have come from various domains ranging from Civil Services to Consulting Firms.

Range of Electives: MBAEx has a healthy mix of core (compulsory) and elective (optional) courses for students. Last year, we are proud to have achieved a record with 18 running electives (180 sessions) in just one term, with introduction of 5 new electives in the domains of Finance, Organisational Behavior, Information Systems, and Economics. We have introduced market specific courses like High Tech Product Management and Fin-Tech. We also have courses like Developing Effective Political Skills for Career Success, a first-of-its kind in any management institute. We also have Economics of Sustainable Development that highlights basics of sustainable development. Digital Start-Up Garage is our initiation into entrepreneurship and live projects, where students will apply their management skills to help accomplish tasks for starts-ups in real-time – start-ups are sourced from our Innovation Park vertical, again a special and unique feature of IIM Calcutta.”

P&Q: Give us your one-minute pitch for your business school. What makes you unique?

Rath: “The Indian Institute of Management Calcutta (IIMC) was established as the first national institute for Post-Graduate studies and Research in Management by the Government of India in November 1961 in collaboration with Alfred P. Sloan School of Management (MIT), the Government of West Bengal, the Ford Foundation and Indian industry. Over the years, IIMC has grown into an institution of global repute, imparting high quality management education. It has been playing a pioneering role in professionalizing Indian management through its Post Graduate and Doctoral level programs, Executive Training Programs, Research and Consulting Activities.

IIM Calcutta was the first management school in India to complete triple accreditation by being recognized by three globally reputed B-school accreditation organizations AACSB, EQUIS and AMBA. Located amidst lush natural surroundings, IIM Calcutta offers an environment in which students and faculty can focus on intellectual and personal growth as a close-knit community.”

P&Q: What are some key elements in your teaching of leadership? What types of options does your school offer that deepens student experience with leadership and makes them more competitive in the marketplace?

Rath: “The MBAEx program is a one-year MBA that is running its 17th year in IIM Calcutta. The program itself is designed as a leadership program and is one of the most sought after full- time residential program offered by IIM Calcutta. The design contains several unique features that help develop its leadership features. The best ones are listed below.

Leadership Lecture Series is a special industry-academic feature of synergy. Industry, corporate, and Social Leaders are invited to conduct interactive sessions with the MBAEx students. The batch benefits immensely from the rich and intellectually stimulating discourses by the industry thought leaders as part of the leadership lecture series.

Being A CEO is a unique and compulsory course that facilitate interaction of the students with top executives, industrialists, and business luminaries who have managed large organizations and have plethora of experiences to share on leadership, people management, policies and regulations, and numerous real business issues they deal with on a regular basis. The entire course has 10 sessions, and each session is orchestrated by a prominent CEO from a specific industry. Students submit reflective notes at the end of the series.

Inter-Disciplinary Courses are unique features of our academic curricula to facilitate pluralistic thinking. Corporate Governance as a course embraces fundamental managerial issues like defining corporate purpose, balancing the interests of various stakeholders, as well as measuring performance for accountability and controls. Management Games as a course develops simulations, within which students apply diverse managerial principles and values to solve simulated business problems.

* Live Project is a stimulating feature unique to IIMC-MBAEx, where students source projects, and apply managerial learnings to lead businesses – the leadership skills are further enhanced because of direct mentorship by industry mentors from renowned firms.

* Philosophy, Liberal Arts and Behavioural Sciences based Courses are staple diets of IIMC in particular, as we have niche academic groups, like Organisational Behavior, Public Policy, Business Ethics & Communication. Developing Effective Political Skills for Career Success and Problem-Solving Techniques in Corporate Communications are some courses that encourage psychological, sociological, anthropological and even Liberal Artistic ways of seeing managerial practices.

IIMC has played a pioneering role in the introduction of innovative courses. Every year new courses are introduced and changes are made to current best practices to keep students in sync with the latest developments in the field of management and also to hone their existing skill sets in preparation for future leadership roles.”

P&Q: What have MBAs told you is the most memorable, signature experience they’ve had in your program? Why did it resonate so much with them?

Rath: “In the Indian scenario, where major applicants are from STEM and Engineering backgrounds, the one-year MBA exposes them to the multi-dimensional discipline of Economics in particular. After going through grueling sessions in almost 6 odd courses across 6 terms over the one year of the program, students develop an interest beyond industry applications for the academic side of management. This has to be understood in context, as students of the one-year MBA are all industry practitioners with more than 5 years of work experience, and some even have 15-19 years of work experience. In fact, we as administrators have our in-house joke – while digital can transform incumbents into agile firms, economics is the bait for conversion of industry aspirants into academicians.

Core courses like micro- and macro- economics, along with India and the World Economy, electives like Economics of Sustainable Development, The Modern Firm, International Economics, and Microeconomics for Banking have changed the game for one-year MBA students in IIM Calcutta, in particular. Perhaps the logic that the subject is able to provide to almost any situation establishes its rather omnipresent applicability and also its data-based formidability. {These are] qualities that non-economics but management-oriented students feel helps them argue, persuade and even assert. In short, economics helps them communicate confidently, a rather unique finding for us.”

P&Q: What is the most underrated part of your program that you wish students knew more about? How does that make your graduates more valuable to prospective employers?

Rath: “In an Indian set-up, the idea of internship is a more popular concept, not just by students but also by prospective employers. Live Project, we feel, is the underrated disrupter. MBAEx Live Project feature is a very future-ready feature introduced in 2019-20 by erstwhile chairperson – Prof. Amit Dhiman along with his MBAEx team. It was Batch 13 student cohort (2019-20) who devised a hands-on approach of sourcing projects through help from alumni – and since then it has grown in strength.

The LP team source projects from Industry. The team has additional work as they must pitch the feature and the program to various industries, who may not be aware of the same. So, it is a pitch that starts from ground zero. The project runs parallel to the academic curricula and is the stand-out feature of MBAEx – since it is the only program that formally runs a Live Project feature. Students use classroom theory and frameworks to help firms with their business problems. Interestingly, the projects are mentored by the industry mentor from the particular firm offering the project. In 2019, we had more alumni help the cohort source projects with their start-ups. Today, in 2023, we have big firms like Accenture and Persistent offering projects, all thanks to our alumni reach. The impact of Live Project is now significant for pre-placement preparations, where firms are recognising Live Projects as meaningful Bio-Data points.

P&Q: Who is a standout in your faculty or administration – the kind of person who graduates talk about a decade after they leave? How does he or she personify your school culture and the best of your MBA program?

Rath: “The stand-out vertical in our program is the MBAEx Office. The graduates talk about the office even after a decade they leave. The office is the backbone of the program.  The Program Manager along with the executive staff has been assisting the program since its inception and has been constant across these 17 years. Hence, all alumni affectionately recognise the office as almost synonymous with all IIMC activities. MBAEx staff is one of the most revered members of the institute by alumni, students and faculty and even industry.”

 

Student	Hometown	Undergraduate Alma Mater	Last Employer
Vishal Agarwal	Calcutta, West Bengal	Institute of Chartered Accountants of India	Union Bank of India
Pradyot Aramane	Hyderabad, Telangana	RVCE, Bangalore	Deep Trace Cybernetics
Shubhankar Bhardwaj	Patna, Bihar	SRM Institute of Science and Technology, Chennai	Quantiphi
Ashwini Chavan	Nagpur, Maharashtra	Visvesvaraya National Institute of Technology, Nagpur	Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company
Lokesh Chinni	Nellore, Andhra Pradesh	N.B.K.R.I.S.T	Hyundai Motor India Engineering
Luckshya Dagar	New Delhi, Delhi	NA	Mezora Consumers
Akshat Kumar	Hyderabad, Telangana	Osmania University	Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories Limited
Chandan Kumar	Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh	National Institute of Technology, Bhopal	Airtel
Manoj Malav	Ghaziabad, Delhi-NCR	IIT (ISM) Dhanbad	Flipkart
Tanvi Muzumdar	Mumbai and Maharashtra	Thadomal Shahani Engineering College, Mumbai University	Deloitte USI Consulting
Neeraj	Bokaro Steel City, Jharkhand	Marine Engineering & Research Institute, Kolkata	K Line Ship Management
Jinesh Patel	Bilimora, Gujarat	Dharmsinh Desai University, Nadiad	Adani Green Energy
Sumit Singh	Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh	MNNIT Allahabad	Bharat Petroleum Corporation

DON’T MISS: MEET THE INDIAN INSTITUTE OF MANAGEMENT CALCUTTA MBAEX CLASS OF 2023

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