Ice People: Mukesh Aghi

Marathon man

Mukesh Aghi

He runs a punishing 8 km to 10 km a day. Last month, Mukesh Aghi, chief executive officer of Universitas 21 Global, the international online business school, ran a 42-km marathon in Singapore.

Aghi, who has a Ph.D in international relations and an MBA in international marketing from US universities, firmly believes that the internet will increasingly play a bigger role in education.

So when a consortium of 16 international universities offered him the Universitas 21 Global job, the former Ariba executive accepted with alacrity. The business school is a joint venture with Thomson Learning, a provider of tailored learning solutions.

Formally launched in August 2003, Universitas has already enrolled 500 students in London and in the Asia-Pacific region.

Though the online B-school was launched in India earlier this year, he will formally inaugurate Universitas 21 Global in China in 2005. The B-school does not target fresh graduates but people with families who cannot chuck their jobs for an MBA degree.

Aghi, who was president of IBM in India between 1995 and 1998, says that the business school is expected to make money in 2007. He has been travelling all over Asia, especially to India, to rope in as many students as possible.

Besides he does not mind pushing his programmes in India as he's of Indian origin "� he's from Meerut, a small UP town near Delhi where his father was a Jan Sangh (now BJP) leader.

Still, running is not his only hobby "� Aghi reads. He's currently reading Martin Gilbert's book on North Korea's Kim dynasty because he feels that Korea could be the next flashpoint.