COMMENTARY
INTERVIEWS
SPECIALS
CHAT
ARCHIVES

Countdown begins for launch of world-class B-school in Hyderabad

Rediff Business Bureau

The governing board of the Indian School of Business to be set up in Hyderabad met for the first time in New York early this week to announce the institution's founding.

The ISB is being set up in association with the Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University and the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

The $ 30 million project to be part-financed by leading Indian corporate sponsors has already secured an initial commitment of $ 20 million from the executive board. The Andhra Pradesh government had offered concessions like cheap land and dedicated power and water supply.

The board decided that the school will offer two programmes: a one-year post-graduate diploma equivalent to an MBA for students with two to five years of work experience and specially designed short-term programmes. Later, doctoral and faculty research programmes are likely to be introduced.

According to a Kellogg's faculty member, the two American business schools will be ''godmothers'' for the ISB. After a while -- though no time frame has been set as yet -- the umbilical cord will be cut; the ISB will be guided to evolve into an autonomous, world-class B-school.

But until that time, Kellogg and Wharton schools will design the curriculum, set admission standards, recruit faculty, conceptualise doctoral programmes and conceive and execute faculty development and exchange programmes. However, student exchange programmes have been ruled out.

Successful Indian professionals in the US will be initially tapped to join the ISB faculty for short terms.

The ISB will be oriented to India's needs. It will seek to deal with subjects like management of family business, public enterprises, entrepreneurs and industries susceptible to heavy exchange rate fluctuations. The focus will be on young managers eager to enter business rather than those already in it and wanting to climb up. In other words, the ISB will steer clear of long-term executive education.

The ISB directors list reads like a who's who of world business. McKinsey Managing Director Rajat Gupta is the ISB president while the board consists of Herbert Allison Junior (president and chief executive officer, Merill Lynch & Co), Juergen Schrempp (chairman, Daimler), Riley P Bechtel (CEO, Bechtel Group), Cor Boonstra (president, Royal Philips Electronics), David Coulter (CEO, Bank of America), Kenneth Lay (CMD, Enron Corporation), Victor Menezes (president, Citicorp), Minoro Makihara (chairman, Mitsubishi Corporation), Lakshmi Mittal (chairman, Ispat International), Morris Tabaksblat (chairman, Unilever), and Martin Sorrel (CEO, WPP group).

Prominent Indian businessmen on the board are Anil Ambani (joint managing director, Reliance Industries), Rahul Bajaj (CMD, Bajaj Auto), Kumaramangalam Birla (chairman, Adiya Birla group), Keki Dadiseth (chairman, Hindustan Lever), Yogesh Deveshwar (chairman, ITC), Adi Godrej (MD, Godrej Soaps), Anand Mahindra (MD, Mahindra and Mahindra), K V Kamath (MD, ICICI), Deepak Parekh (CMD, HDFC) and Jairam Ramesh (Congress leader and former adviser to the finance minister).

Wharton dean Thomas P Gerrity and Kellogg dean Donald Jacobs are also on the board. Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu is likely to be included on the board as an honorary patron.