Gautam Ashok Choksi did his undergraduation in the US before plunging into his family business some 13-odd years ago. Though he enjoyed his work as vice president-finance of Hindustan Platinum Limited, his desire to obtain an MBA degree never left him.
“I was interested in getting world-class education but my business responsibilities did not give scope for me to join a full-time MBA course,” he told Business Standard.
Mumbai-based Choksi is now able to fulfil his ambition, thanks to the Post Graduate Programme in Management for Senior Executives (PGPMAX) started by the Hyderabad-based Indian School of Business a year ago. “The programme presented an ideal opportunity for me to pursue my studies,” Choksi said adding his perspective changed “tremendously” after joining the course.
According to Choksi, the programme not only updated him on the latest management principles but also gave him a broader insight into the areas, which were not his speciality.
Similar views were expressed by Shikha Ankur Bagai, who is a chief financial officer at IL&FS Securities Services Limited. “The programme is pretty well-designed. It is a combination of good faculty, good course content and, of course, the peer group,” she said, adding the fee of Rs 27.5 lakh for the 18-month programme was “worth it.”
ISB deputy dean, Deepak Chandra, said PGPMAX was aimed at making business leaders. The programme was designed on a schedule that minimises disruption of work. Participants would be on campus for a 7-day schedule of classroom learning every sixth week.
Having an average work experience of 16 years in diverse fields, Chandra said, the participants learn more from each other than from classroom lectures. “There will be a wider exposure because of diversity,” he said.
More From This Section
For instance, the first batch of PGPMAX in 2010-11 comprised students from as many as 14 fields including telecom, real estate, trading, automobile, finance, energy, consulting, FMCG, IT and even NGOs.
There is also a physician, Mahesh Ramvilas Joshi, who has joined the course. Joshi, who heads the emergency medicine unit at Apollo Hospitals, said his intention to join the course was basically to explore how emergency medicalcare could be expanded.
Stating that the entire fee was borne by him, the doctor said the course had come in handy for him in optimising the resources at his command for providing better healthcare.
Not just from the private sector, there are participants from the employee of the public sector too. One of them is Bhanu Pratap Yadav, who is working as executive director at Rural Electrification Corporation Limited.
Yadav said the course gave him exposure to management practices in various areas, which would be useful both for him and the organisation he works for.
Going by the words of Chandra, the programme was getting very good response. Over 300 people applied for the course this year of which, 66 have been admitted.
“We have not advertised PGPMAX internationally, yet we got 18 participants from abroad,” Chandra said, adding 68 per cent paid the fee on their own while 20 per cent of the students were sponsored by the organisations they were working with. The remaining 12 per cent received partial sponsorship.