7 things that make IIM Kozhikode special

What makes IIM Kozhikode special? Why IIM Kozhikode?

A couple of years back, we decided to provide an alumni perspective on the question/s, drawing on extensive discussions with our alumni, the Director and faculty, students and external stakeholders as well as detailed research to build a fact base.

This is an alumni perspective on ‘7 things that make IIM Kozhikode special’.

First, a 101 introduction:

IIM Kozhikode is the fifth of the first generation of elite IIMs (Indian Institutes of Management), set up in 1996 in Calicut and it has more than 10,000 alumni . The Institute was ranked 5th (2022) and 4th (2021) in the official government NIRF ranking.

Rankings and placement reports never really provide a complete picture of what makes an institution special.

Here are 7 things where IIM Kozhikode is a leader or a top 5 Indian business school campus in.

#1: Incredible Campus & All-Round Student Experience

• God’s own Kampus: IIM Kozhikode has a legendary resort-like, 112-acre, hilltop campus designed by Joseph Stein, Meena Mani, and Anurag Chowfla, with state-of-the-art classroom and library infrastructure, a prestigious Indian Business museum and hostels with spectacular views of the valley & sea. The campus is 45 minutes from Calicut International Airport which has daily, direct flights to Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad and many other cities in India and abroad.

Check out the campus tour video that shows why IIM Kozhikode is India's dream campus - 150K+ people have already watched it!

• Leadership & personal transformation experiences: Many alumni credit the rich campus life with their personal transformation over the two years. IIM Kozhikode is well known as a student-run campus with multiple leadership and ECA opportunities with student committees, interest groups, clubs, management & cultural summits, Calicut Marathon (India’s biggest student-run marathon), the student startup Bhooklagi, and the inter-IIM sports meet Sangram.

Check out this video below to understand why the IIM Kozhikode experience is life changing.

How do you build leadership skills at business school? Our alumna Smrithi Ravichandran explains how her IIM Kozhikode experience helped her build leadership skills in this short video below

• Excellence in b-school competitions: There is a strong culture and track record of students winning international and national b-school competitions. IIM Kozhikode was ranked 1st (2018–19) and 2nd (2019–20) in the Dare2Compete business school rankings and is the only business school to rank in the top 5 of the ranking consistently over the last 5 years.
• Deep peer networking: Very deep relationships are built through the rich campus life and fun activities on campus and off-campus trips to Calicut and Kerala (backwaters, Kovalam) and nearby hill stations. These are lifelong memories.

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#2: Great Career Opportunities

• Great campus placements: IIM Kozhikode has top 5 IIM campus placements with marquee recruiters across all sectors including consulting, banking, marketing, technology, general management, etc. Examples include MBB (front-end consulting roles with McKinsey, BCG, and Bain) as well as top international and national private equity funds.
• Extensive industry interaction: There is extensive industry interaction through various industry summits, guest speakers, live projects, peers with diverse industry experience, extensive alumni interaction, etc.
• Alumni role in placements: There is high alumni involvement (in the placement processes of their respective companies, accounting for 31% of all offers), alumni placement support during the COVID 19 crisis, as well as year-round alumni-student mentorship & coaching.
• Opportunities through alumni network: Many alumni hustle and source great opportunities through our 10K+ alumni network, enabled by the extensive year-round alumni networking events and sector / functional interest groups which are provided by the IIM Kozhikode Alumni Association.

Our How to build a career" series is unique content with expert advice from senior alumni - over 50K+ people have watched episodes! Check it out below!

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#3: Academic Innovation & Exceptional Faculty

• Program innovation: IIM Kozhikode was the first IIM to introduce a distance learning program in 2002 which has evolved into an executive MBA. Satellite campus set up in Kochi which hosts Executive MBA — Kochi cohort, MDP, and FDP programs. First IIM to launch a Ph.D. for executives. Innovation also in launching new full-time MBAs in finance, liberal studies and management, and 1-year MBA in Business Leadership
• Exceptional faculty: IIK Kozhikode has a visionary Director and exceptional faculty pool. 85+ full-time resident faculty with a rich variety of industry and global experience The target faculty mix is 70% regular and 30% adjunct/visiting (including from foreign institutions).

• Contemporary innovative curriculum: There is constant innovation in curriculum incorporating alumni feedback, with an immersive leadership track, rural and international immersions, cutting edge electives like ‘Data Analytics Using R’ and others, and a popular course on poker. The curriculum also provides an opportunity to design research projects to visualize solutions to potential bottlenecks.
• Social impact: IIM Kozhikode is well known for a strong focus on social impact, with mandatory, popular first-year course ‘Social Transformation in India’ and second-year ‘Social Development Project’ with external clients.

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#4: Deep Entrepreneurship Ecosystem

• On-campus accelerator: IIMK Live is one of India’s top 3 business school incubators, with a large funding pool and track record of incubating startups, including several where alumni are co-founders (5 of 12 in the first cohort).
• Entrepreneurship ecosystem leader: One of 3 IIMs and 3 IITs that are founding members of the Innovation-Venturing and Entrepreneurship in India Network (iVEIN) to facilitate high-quality research and disseminate relevant knowledge through conferences and journals.
• Alumni VC fund and network:The IIMK alumni fund (the only alumni VC fund of its kind in India) leverages a very strong alumni entrepreneur and investor network & has done several deals alongside marquee investors.

• Student fellowships: Alumni-funded ‘Stayin’ Alive’ entrepreneurship fellowships for students, enable them to pursue their own startup ideas instead of a campus job.
• Start-o-sphere: One of the largest b-school entrepreneurship summits, organized by the student-led Entrepreneurship Cell, with startups and VCs from around India coming to campus.

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#5: Diversity & Inclusion Leader

• Student body diversity: IIM Kozhikode was the first IIM to have more than 50% women (2013) and the first IIM to have an additional batch for exceptional women. There is a strong focus on attracting diversity of gender, academic, professional and social backgrounds as well as national level excellence in various fields.
• Diversity on Board: IIM Kozhikode has six women on its Board of Governors — the highest among all IIMs — with three of them being alumni.
• LGBTQIA+ safe space: IIM Kozhikode was one of the first two IIMs to have a student club (Umeed) focused on building awareness of LGBTQIA+ issues and making campus a safe space for LGBTQIA+ students. Umeed also received support from Shashi Tharoor. The IIM Kozhikode Alumni Association conducted a webinar on Improving LGBTQIA+ inclusion in India with LGBTQIA+ alumni and experts.
• Women’s alumni network: There is a strong women’s alumni network with participation in International Women’s Day function on campus, informal meets across cities to build mentoring relationships, sessions with industry leaders. Awareness building effort by conducting Pan-IIM ‘What IIM women want’ survey with widespread coverage.

How did IIM Kozhikode inspire a diversity revolution at the IIMs? Check the video below to find out!

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#6: Most Engaged Alumni?Network

• Most engaged alumni network: The IIM Kozhikode Alumni Association with 14 global chapters (8 India, 6 abroad) leads extensive year-round online and offline engagement enabling networking around shared interests and drives social impact including on COVID 19 and flood relief.

What makes IIM Kozhikode's alumni meet Nostalgia the best in India? Check out this video below to find out!

• Extensive alumni-student networking: There are extensive year-round alumni-student engagement opportunities, including the large on-campus annual alumni meet Nostalgia, (alumni-student buddy program, networking sessions, the largest poker event on any Indian campus, a popular talent show for alumni & students), a regular Alumni Klinic program for one-on-one mentorship, the annual alumni meet Sangam in each city, alumni mentorship during summer internships, etc.
• Deep alumni engagement with Institute: There are five alumni on the Institute’s Board of Governors. There is also alumni engagement with the Institute on multiple other fronts — including involvement during the admissions process, collaboration with faculty in courses and research, etc.

Our alumni engagement isn't just the best in India. It's the best (of Indian business schools) abroad too - check out our video of our grand annual alumni meet Sangam in Dubai below!

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#7: International Exposure & Thought Leadership

• International exchange: IIM Kozhikode provides extensive international exposure and networking opportunities for students through exchange programs with 37 Universities across 22 countries enabling cross-cultural learning & networking
• International partnerships: IIM Kozhikode has established multiple partnerships with leading international Universities — including Yale and Stanford — for faculty development, executive education, leadership programs, joint research, etc. More partnerships are being developed.
• Globalizing Indian thought: The Institute has launched an ambitious, multi-pronged program to globalize the best of Indian thought leadership. GIT Summit 2020 had the participation of Prime Minister Modi and other leading thinkers.
• International students: IIM Kozhikode has started accepting international students in its full time programmes.
• International accreditation: IIM Kozhikode has received international accreditation from AMBA (2010) and Equis (2021) making IIM Kozhikode one of the few management institutes in India to hold the "double crown".

What are IIM Kozhikode's global plans? Check this video below to find out!

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WATCH our webinar on “What makes IIM Kozhikode special — an alumni perspective” - watched by over 10K people already!

If this article piqued your interest on the magic of IIM Kozhikode, then to bring it to life more you need to watch our webinar, on the same theme to help provide more depth to this topic with a diverse range of alumni, who elaborated on each of the 7 reasons articulated above, with examples from their own time on campus and as alumni. We encourage you to view it and jump to any specific reason / section you want to focus on.

The panel was moderated by Ronald Philip, Class of 2005 — Agility, and included:

• Debanjan Bhadury, Class of 2007 — The Rohatyn Group
• Prakriti Sharma, Class of 2015 — Accenture Strategy
• Revant Bhate, Class of 2009 — Mosaic Wellness
• Shruti Khandelwal, Class of 2019 — McKinsey & Company
• Smrithi Ravichandran, Class of 2010 — Flipkart

Watch the full video of the webinar here and below.

Did we miss anything special about IIM Kozhikode? (we probably did!) Are there any special memories it evoked for you? Please do share them in the comments below. We would love to hear from you! Please do share this article widely with your networks!

Bonus content!

Check out our awesome 25 year video written, sung and produced by our alumni Debanjan Bhadury and Sajal Kumar!

And check out our awesome, catchy anthem "Baadalon Mein Class" by the same duo!