Badminton champion sails through IIMC placement

Thomas Cup player says institute gave him a new perspective in life

One would be really proud to be the third ranked national badminton player of the country""even more, if you have been the country's representative, alongside with P Gopichand, in the prestigious Thomas cup.

Things would become really unbelievable, if something like a seat in the prestigious Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta and then a fat salaried job with Reliance Industries gets added on.

A national badminton player Vijay Lancy, who was passing out of the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta has bagged offer from the Reliance Industries. Prior to joining IIMC's flagship MBA programme, Lancy was working with the Bharat Petroleum before he decided to pursue his MBA at IIM Calcutta.

"IIM Calcutta gave me a new career perspective. The rigorous academic structure helped me develop my business acumen. The best part is meeting people from diverse backgrounds. Earlier my interaction was limited to other sportsmen and sponsors. Now I want to excel in my job and use my experience and learning to help in the growth of Reliance's petroleum business", said Lancy.

According to Lancy, the key to success, be it sports or corporate world, are effective teamwork, sustained efforts and insatiable desire for improvement. Lancy has even plans to do something significant for the next generation of badmintons players in future.

Lancy, a 'Shiv Chatrapati' recipient from the Maharashtra state government, gold medalist at the National Games in 1997 and the Junior National Champion in 1992 completed his summer internship from the Marico Industries Limited.

Meanwhile, only 89 out of the 114 companies could make offers to the 249 IIMC students, who bagged a total offer of 505. Out of the 77 foreign offers made during first phase, popularly called 'slot zero', 51 offers were accepted.

The average domestic offer was around Rs 9.81 lakh pa, whereas the highest international offer was $ 1,52,000 pa and highest domestic offer was Rs 23 lakh p.a..

Merrill Lynch, UBS, Lehman Brothers, Deutsche Bank, ABN Amro, BNP Paribas, Credit Suisse. Sun Group, Ameriprise and Bloomberg were among major recruiters in the slot zero.

P&G, HLL, ICICI Securities, Accenture, Kotak Investment Bank, Morgan Stanley Equity research, British Gas, Irevna, Inductis, HSBC India, AMEX, Citigroup, Cognizant, PwC, E&Y, KPMG, Deloitte Consulting were amongst the major players in the second phase.