Meet IIM Bangalore’s EPGP Class Of 2026

AN INTERNATIONAL IMMERSION AND A COMPREHENSIVE PROJECT

Programming-wise, IIM Bangalore offers an array of benefits to EPGP students. Baishali Debadarshini cites the 73-member batch size, which ensures personal attention from faculty and closer connections with classmates. At the same time, he lists the school’s membership in the Global Network for Advanced Management (GNAM) as a differentiator. It provides additional online courses, networking, competitions, and even an in-person week at one of its 32 member schools (which include UC Berkeley’s Haas School, HEC Paris, University of Oxford, and the National University of Singapore). In some ways, the latter is redundant. After all, during the third term, students also complete a required, two-week international immersion, which have recently been held in Germany, Portugal, and Spain. For Shriram, the immersion enables him to explore business practices, economics structures, and cultural mores outside of India.

“International Immersion isn’t just a study tour,” he adds. “It’s a structured curriculum designed to broaden our understanding of economic, political, social, and cultural dynamics through a global lens. This matters to me because my long-term goal is to lead product development that creates meaningful impact at scale. Products that change millions of lives don’t succeed in isolation, they need to work across diverse markets, cultures, and economic conditions.”

To position students to make such impact, IIM Bangalore leans heavily on experiential learning. That includes a Comprehensive Project, where student teams partner with companies on a project under the guidance of a faculty member and industry expert. As a result, EPGP teams can pull together all of the year’s different functional and theoretical learning to address a real-world issue. Not only does the Collaboration Project sharpen their problem-solving and collaboration skills, but serves as a transition back to their professional careers.

That said, the IIMB curriculum is also laden with hands-on projects according to Savini Nenmini, an environmental consultant and engineer. She points to Term 1’s Designing Organizations course. “I partnered with a Bangalore-based company to reimagine their growth-stage team structure—delivering a new divisional hierarchy and a need for more standardized SOPs. Engaging with company stakeholders and my classmates deepened my understanding of India’s business environment and cross-cultural collaboration.”

For Pulkit Dayal, the experiential approach has exposed him to a wide range of classmates – and the experiences and talents they bring. “Each subject throws you into a new team with diverse perspectives, and what starts as a deadline-driven task often becomes a masterclass in collaboration. From these discussions, I’ve learned that there’s rarely one “right” answer. Different minds approach the same problem in wildly different ways and that’s where the magic lies. These group projects don’t just teach you the theory, they give you a wider view of how people think, question, and approach challenges. It’s helped me move beyond my own lens and appreciate the depth that comes from truly listening.”

A WORLD-CLASS FACULTY

…and listening to people with something to say. That’s what separated IIM Bangalore from the rest: the “world-class” faculty, says Raksha Hebbar. More to the point, she was impressed by the “depth and diversity of expertise”… “not just some of the best minds in the country, but globally.” That includes Srinivasan Rangan, whose work has been published by the Journal of Financial Economics, Accounting Review, and Financial Management – and cited by the Wall Street Journal. The same can be said for Professor Chetan Subramanian. Not only has his research been included in the Journal of Money Credit and Banking and Economic Theory, but he has been chosen by companies like McKinsey & Company and KPMG to educate their employees. In his Macroeconomics course, Subramanian brought a unique talent, says Raman Garg.

“As someone with a finance background, I had studied economics earlier as well, but the way he simplifies complex concepts and connects them seamlessly to real-world scenarios is remarkable. His classes have helped me see global macroeconomic developments through a far sharper lens.”

Beyond quant frameworks, the IIM Bangalore curriculum hammers home one takeaway, says Shriram. Namely, management is a truly ‘human’ endeavor – one where relationships and communication trump structures and planning.

“We studied cases where companies failed not due to bad strategy, but because they ignored their workforce’s emotional and cultural needs. I learned that effective management requires emotional intelligence and recognizing that diverse employees bring different sensitivities and motivations. The key lesson? Management is fundamentally about people, not just processes. You can have perfect strategy, but without connecting with your team as human beings, execution fails.”

A CLASS PROFILE

As a whole, the 2026 EPGP batch is broken out between 53 men and 20 women, with the school accepting roughly 10% of applicants. On average, the batch’s GMAT and GRE averaged 698 and 325 respectively. As undergraduates, 65.75% of students earned Engineering-related degrees, followed by Commerce (13.7%) and Science and Arts (6.85%). Industry-wise, the largest segment of the class – 20.55% — last worked for Financial Institutions, followed by Oil and Energy (15.1%), Manufacturing (13.7%), and IT Products (6.85%).

In the 2025-2026 Bloomberg Businessweek ranking, IIM Bangalore ranked as the #1 graduate business program in India – and 3rd overall in Asia – placing 2nd on the continent for pay and learning experience. The program performed equally well in LinkedIn’s 2026 ranking, finishing 20th globally. At the same time, IIMB again held the #2 spot among Indian graduate business programs according to NIRF, notching a near perfect score in graduate outcomes.

What’s on the horizon at IIM Bangalore? This summer, P&Q reached out to the admissions office at the school to learn about new developments, along with additional information on its leadership and experiential learning programming. Here were the school’s responses.

AN INTERVIEW WITH IIMB ADMISSIONS

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?

IIM Bangalore: “They will include the following:

A) Focused Placement Week: Introduced two years ago, the Focused Placement Week continues to be a cornerstone of our placement strategy. By concentrating campus recruiting into a single, well-orchestrated week, we host dozens of companies and place virtually the entire cohort. Over the past year, we have further streamlined the process, which has made coordination easier for recruiters and freed up valuable time for students to focus on academics and non-academic pursuits. Given its proven effectiveness, we will continue this model for the current and upcoming batches.

B) New electives around AI & leadership in the digital era: We expanded the elective basket to include courses such as Generative AI, Doing Business with AI, and Leadership in the Digital Era. This ensures our students build strategic and ethical literacy around AI, enabling them to ask the right questions, shape policy, and lead cross‑functional teams in an AI-first world.”

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

IIM Bangalore: “IIM Bangalore’s EPGP is India’s top one-year, full-time residential MBA for experienced professionals: a 12‑month sprint that combines the country’s widest elective choice with a pioneering international immersion, membership in the 32‑school Global Network for Advanced Management (GNAM), and a Comprehensive Project that solves real company problems.

P&Q: What makes the EPGP cohort unique? 

IIM Bangalore: “A consultant, a banker, a marketing manager, an EV startup co‑founder, a nonprofit leader, a UK trade advisor, and parents returning after career breaks, learn side -by-side.

This diversity of journeys, from sector switches and re-entries, to upskilling, sparks richer debates and deeper peer learning.”

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

IIM Bangalore: “At IIMB, we treat leadership as a blend of self-awareness, integrity, adaptability, stakeholder responsibility, and sharp strategic thinking.

Integrated Leadership Curriculum: Core courses like Corporate Governance & Ethics are followed by electives such as Enlightened Leadership for Responsible Business, Leadership in the Digital Era, Leading with Creative, and Leading through Change & Innovation.

Experiential Leadership Labs: Programs like the Himalayan Mountain Challenge (HMC) put students in high-pressure, team-based environments to practice resilience, decision-making, and empathy.

Moreover, leadership roles in student government and 360° feedback from professors further sharpen the students’ skills and capabilities. By the time they graduate, our MBAs can not only analyze a problem—they can rally people, balance stakeholders, and execute with purpose.”

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?

IIM Bangalore: “Two elements of the programme get repeatedly singled out: the international immersion experience and the case-based pedagogy.

Students consistently call the two-week International Immersion Programme the standout experience of the year. They study at a partner B-School abroad, learn from local faculty and industry leaders, and take part in a programme to learn how business, policy, and culture intersect on the ground, and understand developments and issues that would be important while doing business internationally. In the past two years, cohorts have travelled to Germany, Spain, and Belgium (and Portugal this year), gaining first-hand context. It resonates because the learning is rigorous, and the shared travel time forges bonds that last well beyond the programme.

The second element is the case-driven pedagogy, which helps them “rewire” how they think, forcing them to deal with ambiguity, pressure, and real business stakes instead of tidy textbook answers. Just as important is the cohort itself: doctors, civil servants, startup founders, bankers—people who make every discussion a 360° view of a problem. And the learning doesn’t stop at theory; live engagements (e.g. comprehensive project) let them test ideas in the wild. Put simply, another signature experience is the transformation from “I know my function” to “I can lead through uncertainty”—and students feel that change viscerally.”

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?

IIM Bangalore: “If there’s one gem students often discover late, it’s access to IIMB’s centres of excellence and NSRCEL, our incubation and innovation hub. NSRCEL provides mentorship and networks for entrepreneurial ideas—even for those not “officially” founding startups. This ecosystem quietly boosts graduates’ value by sharpening their innovation mindset and stakeholder management skills.

Equally overlooked is the student-led Seminar Committee, which curates high-quality, closed-door conversations with leaders you usually only read about—think Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam in earlier years and, more recently, the former CEO of KPMG India. These sessions sharpen perspective, expand networks, and give our MBAs boardroom-level exposure long before placement season. In short, they quietly build the context and confidence that employers immediately recognize as day-one value.”

P&Q: How does your MBA program infuse experiential learning into your curriculum? Give us a couple of examples of projects your students have done recently, including the company, scope, and results?

IIM Bangalore: “We don’t treat “experiential learning” as a buzzword – it’s baked into the year. Every student delivers a Comprehensive Project with an industry partner: think market-entry blueprints, supply-chain redesigns, or digital transformation roadmaps that companies use.

On the social side, the Prayaas Committee runs year-long initiatives, most recently Prayaas Day 2025, which included the Youth Udyami entrepreneurship finale for school students and the launch of an e-commerce platform with Atijeevan to support acid-attack survivors, handling everything from design and execution to impact tracking.

Layer in the Himalayan Mountain Challenge, and you have a portfolio of real outcomes (and a few hard-earned lessons) to talk about with recruiters.”

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?

IIM Bangalore: “Ask graduates a decade out and they’ll each cite a different professor—but the pattern is constant. Our faculty are a deliberately diverse mix of scholars and practitioners who teach with rigor, discipline, and an unapologetic focus on real-world application. Many advise corporations, sit on government committees, and help shape public policy—so the classes are rooted in live business and policy challenges, not just textbooks.

The result is teaching that’s analytically sharp, industry-informed, and values-driven—something students can put to work in the outside world from day one.”

Click on links below for in-depth profiles of the Class of 2026

EPGP Student	Hometown	Undergraduate Alma Mater	Last Employer
Pulkit Dayal	Patna, Bihar	Hans Raj College	Air India
Baishali Debadarshini	Dhenkanal, Odisha	CET, Bhubaneswar, Odisha	Maruti Suzuki India Limited
Dhawal Dilip Sail	Dombivali, Maharashtra	Mulund College of Commerce	ICICI Bank Limited
Amisha Garg	Delhi, India	University of Delhi	Zenoti
Raman Garg	Chandigarh, India	ICAI	The Federal Bank
Raksha Hebbar	Kerala, India	Christ	Grant Thornton Bharat
Kunal	Karnal, Haryana	Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee (IITR)	GAIL India Limited
Savini Nenmini	Cochin, Kerala	Stanford University	Bright Power
Varun Rai	Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh	Mumbai University	Encon Cooling Towers
Amit Sahoo	Angul, Odisha	IIT Kharagpur	ONGC Mumbai
Shriram	Bhiwani, Haryana	St. Stephen’s College, University of Delhi	WisdomCircle
Dhivya Venkataramani	Chennai, Tamil Nadu	M.O.P. Vaishnav College For Women – Madras University	BVe Consulting Engineers

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