Waras Singh

Indian School of Business

“From village roots to election war-rooms and boardrooms, CA-Consultant & problem-solver obsessed with on-ground impact.”

Hometown: Malout, Punjab

Fun fact about yourself:

Popularly known as ISB’s “War Time President”, my very first day in office began with campus blackouts triggered by a geopolitical conflict. The name stuck in quiet recognition of how we navigated that crisis. (Hopefully the first and the last.)

Undergraduate School and Degree: Hans Raj College (Delhi University): B.Com Hons; ICAI: Chartered Accountancy

Where was the last place you worked before enrolling in business school? Seven Seas Capital, Chief of Staff (Finance & Strategy)

Where did you intern during the summer of 2025? Not Applicable – As part of ISB’s one-year PGP.

Where will you be working after graduation? Alvarez & Marsal, Manager-Business Transformation Services

Community Work and Leadership Roles in Business School:

1. President, Graduate Student Body (GSB)
2. Convener, ISB Leadership Summit (ILS) – Led strategy and execution of ISB’s flagship leadership conference during its silver jubilee year.
3. Chairperson’s Award for Best All-Rounder (PGP Class of 2026) – Highest student honour, awarded to one student per campus.
4. ISB Exemplary Leader Award – Recognised for outstanding leadership and contribution to the ISB community.

Which academic or extracurricular achievement are you most proud of during business school? Receiving the Chairperson’s Award for Best All-Rounder was deeply gratifying, but even more special are the 150+ personal testimonials from my peers, an affirmation that the impact I created as student body leader was real, personal, and lasting.

I am most proud of leading the student body as President of the Graduate Student Body while sustaining strong academics through ISB’s intense one-year programme. As GSB President, I worked at the intersection of students and administration, navigating high-stakes decisions, amplifying diverse voices, and driving key initiatives. We surpassed previous benchmarks across placements, campus culture, events – both social and professional – and the breadth of festivals we celebrated.

But what stays with me most is not just what we delivered, it’s the culture we built: a campus that felt more inclusive, engaged, and accountable to each other.

What achievement are you most proud of in your professional career? I am most proud of my experience working at the highest levels of decision-making during the Punjab state elections, where I began as a volunteer driven to contribute to my home state and went on to lead a core war room team.

In a high-pressure environment, I worked closely with senior leadership to translate rapidly evolving ground realities into actionable insights and strategic decisions. A key part of my role involved deep research into structural issues such as public debt, resource leakages, and governance inefficiencies. These insights helped shape narratives that brought critical policy challenges into public focus and impacted actual policy decisions, even finding reflection in mainstream discourse and media coverage.

While the party I worked with did not come to power, the issues we highlighted continue to remain central to public debate, contributing to greater scrutiny and accountability in governance.

This experience reinforced my belief that meaningful impact is not always defined by immediate outcomes, but by shaping conversations that drive long-term change.

Why did you choose this business school? I chose the Indian School of Business for its unparalleled alumni network in India, an ecosystem deeply embedded across business, policy, and entrepreneurship.

As someone committed to building and creating impact in India, access to a network that is both influential and actively engaged in shaping the country’s growth was critical. ISB’s alumni are not just global professionals; they are operators, founders, and leaders driving change on the ground, making the network uniquely relevant to my aspirations.

This was complemented by ISB’s world-class, globally benchmarked curriculum and faculty, which offered the rigour of top international programs while remaining deeply contextual to India’s dynamic landscape.

For me, ISB represented the rare combination of global quality and local relevance, exactly what I needed to build and scale impact in India.

Who was your favorite MBA professor? This is honestly a very difficult question to answer because I’ve been fortunate to learn from so many exceptional professors at ISB. However, if I had to choose one, it would be Professor Prasanna Tantri.

What stood out about him was how he changed the way I think and approach problem-solving – from earlier focusing too much on concepts to actually framing problems correctly. His classes pushed us to focus on first principles, especially how expectations, incentives, and general equilibrium shape real-world outcomes. What made this even more powerful was his use of simple, intuitive examples, like the “dosas in an economy”, to explain complex macroeconomic ideas, making them feel both relatable and deeply intuitive.

What made the experience even more impactful was how relevant his teaching was; many of the topics we discussed in class would appear in op-eds in leading Indian business newspapers, often written by him. That direct link between classroom learning and real-time policy debates made the course deeply engaging and meaningful.

What was your favorite course as an MBA? My favorite course during the MBA was Negotiation Analysis, taught by Professor Pooja Mishra. What made it stand out was how practical and immediately applicable it was; every concept we learned could be tested in real time through simulations and class discussions. It fundamentally changed how I approach conversations, from focusing only on positions to understanding underlying interests and creating value for both sides.

Over time, I also realised that negotiation is not limited to formal settings; it is embedded in almost every discussion, whether personal or professional. This course helped me identify those patterns, structure conversations better, and approach them more thoughtfully. It has genuinely become an integral part of how I think and interact.

The course also pushed me to become more self-aware. Through multiple negotiations, I could see my own tendencies, when I was being too agreeable, when I should be more assertive, and how preparation directly impacts outcomes. More than frameworks, it built judgment, something I will carry forward in every conversation I have.

What was your favorite MBA event or tradition at your business school? My favorite tradition at ISB was how, despite being a cohort of 400+ people living on campus, we showed up for each other in the smallest, most human ways, especially on birthdays. No matter how packed the day was, people would drop in, even if just for five minutes. It sounds simple, but it reflected something deeper: a closely knit community that chose connection despite the intensity of the program.

That same spirit extended to how we supported each other through the toughest phases, such as preparing for placements or in moments of crisis. And we also celebrated every festival, from every corner of the country, on an unprecedented scale. In those moments, ISB felt like a living celebration of India’s unity in diversity.

Looking back over your MBA experience, what is the one thing you’d do differently and why? Looking back, the past year at the Indian School of Business has been deeply transformational – academically, professionally, and personally.

One thing I would do differently is be more intentional about documenting and reflecting on this journey. With the intensity of the program and the breadth of experiences, from academics to leadership, there were countless moments of learning that were easy to move past without fully capturing. Maintaining a daily journal or planner would have helped me better reflect on these experiences, recognise personal and social patterns, and internalise those lessons more deeply.

In the same vein, I would have been more deliberate about sharing these learnings externally. I tended to prioritise execution over communication, underutilising platforms like LinkedIn to reflect, engage, and amplify insights.

What was the most impactful case study you had in business school, and what was the biggest lesson you learned from it?

One of the most impactful “case studies” for me was my Experience Learning Program (ELP), where we worked with a client on shaping the GTM strategy for a GenAI platform targeted at the U.S. market. Unlike classroom cases, the problem was highly unstructured; we weren’t just analysing a business but actively contributing to product development, refining the value proposition, identifying use cases, and aligning the offering with market needs. As we progressed, the scope expanded with new insights and stakeholder inputs, eventually requiring a much deeper, more comprehensive deliverable.

The biggest lesson was that in real-world settings, strategy and execution evolve together. Defining the product, understanding the customer, and crafting the GTM approach had to happen in parallel, not sequentially. This experience taught me how to structure ambiguity, think from first principles, and continuously align with stakeholders while building for a live market.

What did you love most about your business school’s town? What I loved most about Mohali was its simplicity and sense of familiarity. Being in my home state, there was a certain comfort that kept me grounded through the intensity of the MBA. At the same time, Mohali’s calm and uncluttered environment provided the perfect counterbalance to the fast-paced, high-pressure experience at ISB.

It reminded me that while ambition drives us forward, staying connected to one’s roots brings clarity and perspective.

What business leader do you admire most? I deeply admire Nandan Nilekani for his ability to operate seamlessly across business and public policy while driving impact at a national scale. What stands out is his role in building India’s digital public infrastructure, particularly Aadhaar, where he combined technological vision with pragmatic execution in a highly complex and diverse environment. His work reflects a rare ability to translate ambitious ideas into first-of-its-kind systems that function effectively on the ground, positively impacting billions of lives.

What is one way that your business school has integrated AI into your programming? What insights did you gain from using AI? At the Indian School of Business, AI has been integrated into the curriculum through dedicated courses and discussions on real-world use cases across industries. Additionally, this year saw the introduction of an AI-enabled case interview preparation tool as part of a student-led AI Lab initiative, in partnership with other learning resources. 

Which MBA classmate do you most admire? If I had to choose one classmate I admire most, it would be Gurjyot Singh Sachar.

What sets Gurjyot apart is his fun personality, selflessness, and deeply caring nature. He consistently goes out of his way for others, investing his time and energy without expecting anything in return. Even without holding any formal position, he has had a significant impact on people around him.

What I admire most is his emotional intelligence, especially in clutch situations. When it mattered most, despite being one of the youngest in the batch, he showed up with clarity, maturity, and the ability to support and deliver for others. In a world where leadership is often defined by titles, Gurjyot represents what today’s leaders need more than anything: empathy, selflessness, and the ability to truly care for people.

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

1. Acquire and lead the transformation of a company, from sourcing to scaling and a successful exit. Explore the search fund landscape in India.

2. Build and scale impactful solutions in underserved regions of India (Tier2/3), driving visible and measurable change. (F40U)

What made Waras such an invaluable addition to the Class of 2026?

“Waras Singh has shown outstanding leadership as President of the Graduate Student Body (GSB) on the Mohali campus. He earned the trust of both students and administration, guiding the student body through some sensitive periods with calmness and clarity. In fact, he was formally elected as President on the day Operation Sindoor started, and there was a lot of concern among the student body, given Mohali’s proximity to the Pakistan border.

He was the primary channel of communication between ISB’s administration and the student body. He was calm and composed and conveyed all information and messages in an objective way without overreacting or causing panic. Later during the year, one of the students passed away quite suddenly. It was a tough time for the cohort in Mohali, given how close the 400 students were. He showed a lot of maturity and sensitivity as a leader during a particularly emotional time for many students. These are only two of many instances during the year where Waras showed outstanding leadership with calm and composure.

While some of the prior GSB Presidents had a student vs administration mentality, Waras was very different. He made sure that everyone on both sides understood that they were doing things for the greater good of ISB and the students. As the situation demanded, he put forth students’ views on the administration, but also at times understood the administration’s views and communicated them to the student body. He was willing to support what was correct or appropriate, even if some of the things he supported may not have been popular with students. This is an important trait of a great leader.

Waras is very humble but is also willing to discuss and debate issues in a polite and respectful manner. He is well-liked and respected by the student body, which is not an easy thing to achieve among 400 students. He worked hard to build a more connected and supportive community through mental well-being initiatives, creating safe spaces that brought students together, as well as working to organise big student-led events.

In summary, I feel that Waras’s leadership was not defined only by what he achieved but how he achieved it – being calm and composed and with a deep sense of responsibility towards ISB, its students, faculty and staff.”

Professor Ramabhadran Thirumalai
Deputy Dean – Mohali Campus and Chair of the PGP Awards Committee
Indian School of Business

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