Aashruth Rangarajan

Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad

“Empathetic leader.  Explorative thinker:  What else?  What more?  What next?”

Hometown: Chennai, Tamil Nadu

Fun fact about yourself: I find joy in traveling, being in the stadiums/arenas to experience live sports (Cricket, Tennis and Football) and to photograph wildlife in their natural habitat.

Undergraduate School and Degree: Undergrad: B. Com – Loyola College, Chennai

Where was the last place you worked before enrolling in business school? Founder – Eating Circles

Where will you be working after graduation? Will go back to scaling my business – Eating Circles

Which academic or extracurricular achie0vement are you most proud of during business school? From an extracurricular POV, winning the gold (in Table Tennis) for PGPX in Aakrosh was a special moment.

From an academic POV, I am very comfortable with Finance. When we got a chance to bid for electives, the easiest thing to do would have been to keep my subjects finance heavy. But what’s so unique about the PGPX program is the diverse subjects we can learn from. This included guided marketing simulations; using regression analysis; understanding human behavior; negotiation strategies and grassroots level innovation (by taking us to remote areas like Pakyong district in Sikkim this year to empathise with the suffering of common people and to come up with grassroot ideas and solutions); and inner theatre (psychology) and valuation of new economy firms. The opportunity for perspective building was immense.  I made sure to pick a wide variety of electives to gain the cross exposure. I am glad that I chose to challenge myself beyond my comfort zone.

What achievement are you most proud of in your professional career? I am most proud of the fact that we didn’t fire a single person from Eating Circles, though we were bleeding in cashflow, month-on-month, during the incredibly challenging COVID lockdown. The team was the reason we became such a sought-after restaurant, and COVID was my time to stand by them. Interestingly, the way the team perceives eating circles has completely changed after this gesture. Initially, I owned my relationship with the team and now the team is reciprocating by displaying ownership to the Brand – Eating Circles.

Why did you choose this business school? Like most Indians, I grew up thinking of IIM-A as the gold standard in Indian education. One of my best friends, Shreyas Shivakumar, did the PGPX program in 2023-24 and swore by the impact it created on him. Hence, when I considered doing an MBA, IIM-A was my first choice.

Who was your favorite MBA professor? Personally, it will be Prof. Vishwanath Pingali (who taught us Firms and Markets) and Prof. Balagopal Gopalakrishnan (who taught us Financial Reporting and Analysis) simply because they were my first experience of IIM-A. They set the tone for our MBA. The way they repeatedly connected the concepts with real-life case studies helped me understand and appreciate the IIM-A way of education.

What was your favorite course as an MBA? I’d like to pick one of the not-so-popular (yet) courses – Real Estate Markets. I simply picked the course to see if it’ll help overcome my mind blocks over real estate (bringing in the much-needed objectivity). And that is exactly what the course achieved. It helped me to look at real estate through very different spectacles. It was one of those courses where I had a vertical take-off of knowledge. I instantly saved all the cases and the Excel templates in my drive because I knew they would always be handy. With a nice, intimate classroom experience of just 15 of us, a carefully-designed syllabus, and an exceptionally high quality of instruction by Prof. Prashant Das, it was undoubtedly one of my favorite courses.

Additionally, though not a course per se, we get an opportunity to research a topic that we are passionate about under the mentorship of a faculty for 3 months (called the Individual Research Project). I chose to work on building a growth strategy for my restaurant – Eating Circles – with the PGPX Chair – Prof. Amit Karna. I had the opportunity to have a 45-minute conversation with him, where he looked at the numbers of my restaurant, repeatedly pushed back on my assumptions, and helped me look at my revenue possibilities differently. He also helped me connect the strategic frameworks (purely academic knowledge at first) with my business. It was truly an enriching experience.

What was your favorite MBA event or tradition at your business school? Sports is a uniting force, and the intra-IIMA sports tournament – Aakrosh – was my favorite MBA event. It not only got the batch together (we’d make it a point to give our batchmates the loudest cheer and respectfully sledge and put our opponents under pressure during their games), but it also gave a lot of opportunities to interact with students from the other programs.

Playing on the open grounds of IIM-A in perfect weather is a core memory I will always carry with me!

Looking back over your MBA experience, what is the one thing you’d do differently and why? If I could do it again, I’d take up a leadership role in one of the clubs or committees. I skipped it and convinced myself (and my batchmates) with many justifications, but deep down I know it was a missed opportunity.

Another thing I’d change: Auditing electives. We had this rare opportunity to sit-in on almost any elective – no submissions, no pressure of performance – just pure learning. But I took the lazy way out and only attended the courses I’d signed-up for. Meanwhile, some of my classmates spent hours curating their list of electives to audit and got so much more out of it.  Something I missed for sure.

What is the biggest myth about your school? One of the biggest myths of the PGPX program in IIM-A is the relentless academic pressure, with no room for anything else. The culture here pushes you to manage time effectively for sure, and academics did dominate the year’s first half. But on an overall front, when I look back, I find it to be a very balanced experience. There was abundant time for extracurriculars (multiple sports and cultural fests) and networking. Additionally, we went to Paris for three weeks as a part of an ‘International Immersion Program’ and to Sikkim for a week for a grassroots innovations course.

If you have clarity on what all you want from your one year, you can customize your experiences.   Some (more than 3) got their startup launched; focused-on research projects; fitness (one of my classmates lost 17 kgs in this one year); bridged their knowledge gaps; and honed their leadership skills (through leadership positions at numerous committees and clubs).

It was up to us to fully use the one year over here.

What did you love most about your business school’s town? The first thing that comes to mind is the food. Not everyone likes how Gujarati food leans on the sweeter side, but I absolutely loved it. The thalis were a personal favourite.  I made it a point to hit up different Gujarati specialty restaurants almost every week. The hospitality they were able to achieve, despite prioritising quick turnaround, was fascinating to watch and learn.

What movie or television show (e.g., The Big Short, The Founder, Mad Men, House of Lies) best reflects the realities of business. What did you learn from it? As a restaurateur, I deeply connected with the television show The Bear. The chaos, financial struggles, and the transition from passion to structured leadership, though dramatized, reminded me a lot of the initial days of Eating Circles. The show also reinforced how leadership under pressure, team dynamics, and process improvements are crucial in any high-intensity business environment.

What is one way that your business school has integrated AI into your programming? What insights did you gain from using AI? From introducing elective courses (Gen AI for marketing) to encouraging students to use AI (at the right times) to refine and structure their arguments and further improve the quality of class discussions, I think IIM-A has optimally integrated AI into the MBA experience.

Which MBA classmate do you most admire? How to choose one bar of gold from a goldmine?  Being in IIM-A, you are surrounded by an accomplished cohort (of 159).

However, Vipul Notani was truly inspirational.  When you connect to a contrasting personality, they reflect so much of you to you, because of the differences you share.  I am naturally variety-seeking, a jack-of-all-trades, and struggle to go into one thing and obsess over it long enough… an essential trait for supernormal success.

With Vipul, it was just three things – Finance (All-India rank holder in Inter as well as Final), Table Tennis (Professionally trained, beat the Chhattisgarh state champion in his prime), and Chess (Chess.com rating of 1800).

Finance is a subject most people in my batch dreaded, and he’d simply go over the material for a few minutes and then teach, answering every single question, and ensured people got a conceptual understanding. What inspired me was that I got to see what depth can do.

What are the top two items on your professional bucket list?

1. I have been successful in building a standalone outlet. one of the things I would like to do is to be able to build a business model that can be run at scale without being tied to day-to-day operations.

2. I’d want to become an active venture capital investor who gets to participate in the growth journey of multiple high-impact businesses across different industries

What made Aashruth such an invaluable addition to the Class of 2025?

“If there’s one thing you should know about Aashruth Rangarajan, it’s this—he doesn’t just walk the entrepreneurial talk; he sprints, strategizes, and somehow manages to do it all while balancing a full plate (often quite literally, given his love for food ventures).

From day one at IIMA, Aashruth made it clear that he wasn’t here just for an MBA or add a degree to his resume —he was here to sharpen his instincts, challenge himself, and refine the way he builds businesses.  Balancing a full time MBA at IIMA is no easy feat, but juggling it while running a successful business – that’s a masterclass in time management, rigor, and determination.

Despite opting out of the placement process (because, well, he’s the one creating jobs), Aashruth remained an integral part of the cohort, always willing to step in, share insights, and lend a hand when needed. Aashruth was the kind of peer who made team discussions sharper, debates livelier, and the PGPX experience richer for those around him. He brought in fresh, real-world perspectives, challenged conventional wisdom, and, when needed, was always ready to support his batchmates in their own journeys.

His ability to connect classroom concepts to business realities was remarkable, making learning with him an engaging experience. He is proof that at IIMA, PGPX is not just about learning business—it’s about building it.”

Prof Viswanath Pingali
Chairperson Placements and Professor of Economics at Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad (IIMA)

DON’T MISS: MBAS TO WATCH: CLASS OF 2025

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