Around 100 Corporate heads will gather here at the Indian School of Business (ISB) on December 2 for a day-long "professional programme" on different aspects of running business, marketing, finance, new approaches etc.
The session assumes importance in the context of the current recession and consequent global business scenario following the September 11 developments.
There is a possibility of Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, addressing the industry captains before they settle down to their professional exercise. The PM as well as industry leaders will be here on December 2 for the formal inauguration of the ISB, the Wharton, Kellogg and London Business School affiliated world class institution being set up by Indian corporates to develop the future business leaders.
According to Pramath Raj Sinha, Dean of ISB, participation in the "academic session" will be only by invitation. The ISB Governing Board members -- Anil Ambani, Rahul Bajaj, Yogeshwar Deveshwar, Adi Godrej, Rajat Gupta, Punendu Chatterjee, among others, have also been invited for participate in the discussion.
Meanwhile, the entire $50 million permanent structures in the 250-acre campus of the ISB , 20 kms from the City, are getting ready for being inaugurated by the Prime Minister on December 2.
The current recession in economy has affected the fund flows for the ISB, but Sinha maintains that it is not as "issue" as such. "No corporate has backed out of the commitment made. At best, one or two have sought a little postponement of payment and this has not affected us, especially since the capital expenditure has already been incurred," Sinha said.
According to the Dean, around $ 60 million has already been received and this has been invested in the infrastructure. " Now, we want to build up a solid corpus or endowment to keep the ISB going. For this, we are embarking upon an aggressive fund raising programme in the coming months. We hope to raise immediately around $10 million under this drive", Sinha said.
ISB has commissioned a financial wizard and chartered accountant, G Subramaniam, formerly of the Hindustan Levers Ltd, to advice it on fund collection. "Subramaniam will create the mechanism by which corporates will be able to associate themselves with ISB. It is on the lines of the well-known western concept of gift tree - corporates could make a donation and in return we can name a Chair or a wing after them. Some sort of customising relationship with corporates, both in terms of what they can give us and what we can provide for them", Sinha explained.
The dean said the first one year post graduate programme in management that commenced on July 4 was progressing as per our schedule. In all there are 130 students including one foreign student-- from Hongkong. The school has appointed three permanent faculty members and three more have been recruited and will join the faculty on January 1, 2002. All the 18 visiting instructors most of them from Wharton, Kellog, Stanford, University of Minnesota and London Business School are maintaining their schedule at the ISB. "The visiting model is working very well," Sinha said.
