Some are giving up lucrative careers to make a difference to their institutes
When Sapna Agarwal graduated from the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (IIM-B)’s prestigious Post Graduate Programme (PGP) in 1993, IBM lapped her up. For the next 15 years, the self-confessed workaholic built her career with some of the best companies including IBM, Intel, Red Hat and EMC. In 2009, however, she gave it all up to join her alma mater IIM-B as head of career development services.
Agarwal is among the first ones in an increasing brigade of IIM graduates who are leaving behind lucrative careers to make a difference to their institutes.
“I wanted to do something meaningful and I knew if I didn't do something now, I would never do it,” says Agarwal, who was the director for global alliances at EMC when she quit her post. As someone who had always been interested in the happenings at IIM-B, the scales tilted towards her new turn of career when she spoke to the director of IIM-B, Pankaj Chandra.
“I was a frequent visitor to the institute and through my discussions I discovered that the student placement process had become tougher due to the economic conditions. Since I have gone through the placement process as a student, the post of heading career development services was offered to me and after some thought I decided to take it up,” she says.
Similar is the case of 28-year-old Kunal Upadhyay. By the time he passed out from the post graduate programme in management (PGPM) at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A) in 2005, Upadhyay had bagged a plum job of internal consultant for Europe, Middle East and African (EMEA) regions at Citibank. Yet, what would have been a dream job for many, couldn’t hold back Upadhyay for long.
By 2007, he had bid adieu to Citibank and came back to his alma mater to join its incubation wing, Centre for Innovation Incubation and Entrepreneurship (CIIE) as its CEO. “Eventually it was about satisfaction. While I liked my corporate job, I always wanted to create some value for IIM -A and the society. At the same time, I wanted to be involved in innovative technologies. Also, one of the biggest reasons I am here is that I believe in entrepreneurship and wanted to help others endorse it too,” he says.
A BTech from IIT Madras, Upadhyay found himself staying in touch with some faculty members at IIM -A. “Since I continued to be in touch with some faculty members at IIM-A, they knew about my passions. Soon, they started telling me about this upcoming centre where they intended to develop innovative technologies and support budding entrepreneurs and wanted me to head the centre. So I took the plunge and came back to this campus for a full-time job,” he recalls.
The IIM faculty is undoubtedly thrilled. “The IIMs have found it difficult to hire and retain faculty in the last few years due to salary issues. To have a few ex-students giving up lucrative careers to give back to institute is a major leap of faith,” says Pankaj Chandra, Director of IIM-B.
“The idea of hiring full-time professionals for each of our initiatives is part of the strategic process we envisioned last year. We have been looking for people to add value to our institute. In 99 per cent of the cases, people we identify may not buy my argument but if one per cent of them are inclined towards giving back to the institute, we are behind them in their effort,” explains Chandra.
Nevertheless, it’s a challenge for these bravehearts. Rakesh Godhwani, a passout from IIM-B’s Post Graduate Program in Software Enterprise Management (PGSEM) who quit his highly successful 11-year-old corporate career to join IIM-B full-time as head of the institute’s alumni association, admits that he has had to take a drastic pay cut.
“What I earn now is considerably less than what I used to earn before. I even have a house loan to be paid and a family to support. But I feel I have followed my calling. I was active in the alumni association and when the director of IIM-B proposed a full-time alumni position, I took it up knowing well what I was giving up, says the 33 year old.
Similar views were echoed by Upadhyay. “It (pay) was definitely 6-7 times lower than what I was getting in the corporate world. But pay was not my motivation to come back. As long as my basic needs were taken care of, I was happy undergoing a better learning. I have gained a lot in the past couple of years,” he says.
Another issue faced was convincing family and friends. “My family was supportive about my move knowing that I wanted to move on to a new phase of life but some of my friends were shocked and wanted to know how I would be able to live without the pay I was getting” recalls Agarwal.
And more alumni will follow. At least 3-4 more IIM-A graduates, according to Upadhyay, have left their corporate jobs to come back to join CIIE with him. He concludes, “Our goal now is to produce successful entrepreneurs. We want our activities to benefit students and research activities of IIM-A as well as build its credibility.”
