Rajat Gupta : The one man army behind the successful journey of #ISB

If we think of Indian School of Business, Mr Rajat Gupta comes into our mind immediately. In 1997, Mr. Gupta co-founded the Indian School of Business (ISB) in Hyderabad with a friend and fellow senior partner Anil Kumar. Rajat was founding chairman of ISB for more than a decade until March 21, 2011. Rajat Gupta and Kumar have both since resigned as chairman and executive board director respectively as they both were accused of insider trading in the US. Gupta, 70, has penned his memoir ‘Mind Without Fear’ that released recently. After his resignation, Rajat Gupta has kept himself away from ISB and nearly eight years after quitting the board of ISB, he is set to bare his heart out at the ISB Hyderabad campus today. This time, it will be about his book 'Mind Without Fear'. Inspired by Rabindranath Tagore's poem, the book captures ups and lows of his life.

This article is written on the occasion of his visit to his home (ISB) after many years. The article highlights that Mr. Rajat Gupta, as a co-founder of the education startup in 1990s played a very significant role in creating a world class institution in India and that too two decades back. Everyone builds great institution, but the way he had built the ISB is a remarkable story. His association with ISB was a watershed moment in the history of the 18 year old young institute. This article is dedicated to Mr. Gupta for his contribution to the school. He has built a global business school from that is a role model institute in the country.

Rajat Gupta had worked hard to make ISB, as one of the most successful private business schools (and an elite higher education institution) in the world. His association with ISB cannot be forgotten or ignored. His visionary leadership skills, passion to give back something to the country (India) has been very fruitful in building the school. His arduous support building the great institution is not only an exemplary, but a very well accomplished act that will inspire many to build such institutes in India. The ISB’s success story in the last two decades clearly shows Rajat’s involvement in developing the school as India’s answer to the American top schools in producing world class leaders.

As a catalyst, Rajat Gupta has played a key role in fundraising and in pulling together international support from the top business schools and through the governing board. Rajat Gupta brought together top businessmen and business executives from nationally and internationally reputed companies to Indian born successful entrepreneurs. In the initial years of the school, ISB has received very good support from the McKinsey & Company. More than 30 McKinsey consultants worked with ISB various times and were involved in everything from the beginning till the school opening in 2001.ISB has got the services of the leading experts in planning, strategy, and management, all for free. The value that the McKinsey consultants have brought to the ISB project is invaluable. The support ISB got from the McKinsey team is something unique and was immensely helpful. ISB was very lucky to get the guidance, resources, and support from the McKinsey would not have been possible without Mr. Rajat Gupta. Rajat Gupta could get good support from the McKinsey in the great institution building.

As a three-time managing director of the consulting firm McKinsey & Company, Gupta was well acquainted with many of the world's most powerful corporate executives during his 34-year long career at McKinsey. Gupta traveled tirelessly for business. Being a prodigious networker during his career, has helped him to build an international reputed business school such as ISB.

The idea of ISB emerged in the mid-90s when Rajat Gupta started thinking in terms of giving something back to India. He chose business education was fairly simple: his firm McKinsey was one of the biggest recruiters on business school campuses, and it was an area where he had considerable expertise. Gupta had roped in a handful of people from within McKinsey, including Anil Kumar and Pramath Sinha and some of the top faculties (such as Sumantra Ghoshal, Dipak Jain…etc) from reputed schools to start his dream project.

Mr. Gupta was associated with top schools such as Harvard, Wharton, MIT, and Kellogg School of Management among others. His association with these schools had helped immensely to the ISB to get good guidance and mentorship. Predictably, there were numerous hurdles along the way, ranging from raising money to getting land to striking alliances with global business schools to roping in a permanent dean and faculty.

Rajat Gupta's contacts with Indian prominent business tycoons such as Rahul Bajaj, Shiv Nadar, Adi Godrej, Anil Ambani…etc have helped ISB with both their time and money. Not only the above-mentioned business people, but some of the other top business executives have also helped the school with their financial resources and guidance and direction to the school. Not only the from the Indian business executives, the ISB received support from many non – Indians also.

Late in 1999, during a break in discussions at one board meeting, Rajat Gupta happened to mention to Dr. Daniel Vasella, Chairman& CEO of Novartis about the financial resources the school needs and soon, the school has received a cheque of US$2 million dollars as a donation from the Novartis. Dr. Daniel gave the Indian School of Business more money than was asked for. Gupta managed to woo some of the biggest names in the business to be on the school's governing and executive boards. Pharma major Novartis' CEO Daniel Vasella, WPP Group's Martin Sorrell, lvmh's Bernard Arnault, Michael Dell, Anil Ambani, Yogi Deveshwar, Adi Godrej, K.V. Kamath, L.N. Mittal, Shiv Nadar, N.R. Narayana Murthy, Rahul Bajaj, Sunil Mittal are just some members of ISB's all-star boards.

Some Interesting Facts about ISB:

ISB has succeeded beyond the expectations of its founders. The school was ranked among the best global business schools. There is a unique feat that ISB has achieved  in that at the age of seven, ISB had entered the elite club of FT top-ranked business schools in 2008.

ISB being ranked amongst the top 20 in the world in its first year of eligibility is indeed a remarkable achievement.

ISB enjoys the distinction of being the first Indian B School to be ranked among the top 12 global business schools in the annual FT Global MBA ranking in 2010.

In between (2008 – 2012) ISB was ranked among the top 20 global B-schools by the FT MBA Rankings, a spectacular achievement by any measure. In 2010, ISB has secured 12th rank, 2011 13 in 2011, 15 in 2009, 20 in 2008 and 2012. Ever since 2008, for the past 12 years, the school has been consistently performing well in the FT rankings. In 2019, the school was ranked among the top 25 global business schools, a unique feat by any Indian school.

ISB did well in FT's, previously released (2018) specialized rankings: ISB was ranked #26 worldwide in MBA for Women, #44 in MBA for Finance and #46 in MBA for Entrepreneurship.

ISB was the first Indian business school to get AACSB accreditation.

With nearly 900 students a year, the ISB has one of the largest MBA programs in the world.

ISB faculty’s research productivity is highest among the Indian business schools and ISB has already established itself as a top-ranked school for its research productivity. ISB is the only Indian business school ranked among the UTD Top 100 Bschool Research rankings (2010-2018). ISB faculty's research productivity is highest in Asia.

The inaugural Times Higher Education (THE) - Wall Street Journal (WSJ) rankings of world MBA programs announced in December 2018 has ranked ISB second in the world among 35 one-year programs, and the first of its kind in India.

The school’s faculty roster that makes other schools turn green with envy

Salaries offered to the ISB graduates are best in Asia and can be compared with top US business schools.

Rajat Gupta’s social entrepreneurship skills have helped him to set up two world class institutes in the country in the area of education (ISB) and healthcare sector (Public Health Foundation of India, PHFI).

Rajat Gupta’s contribution to the organisations he has involved in and his service to the social and economic development of the society is well acknowledged and his involvement in setting up the business school that has started off a journey in the late 1990s has not only created ripples in the business education in the country, it also inspired other institutes to come up in the country. Rajat's leadership abilities have proved that a man with passion, a vision and mission has created a school that has been creating thousands of visionary business leaders for the country.

 References:

1.   An Idea Whose Time Has Come: The Story of the Indian School of Business by Pramath Raj Sinha (Author)

2.   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rajat_Gupta

3.   https://www.businesstoday.in/magazine/features/change-agent/story/160.html

Article is written by Mr. Ramesh Kotnana. 

I acknowledge referring the above mentioned web links/websites while writing this article. The thoughts and opinions that I express on this site are my own and not necessarily those of my employer. 

This is the Author's personal point of view and is not influenced by any person or organization.

I urge all the readers, to please share this article/s with your friends, relatives and well wishers if you consider this subject (content) is useful for them to refer.

Thanks for reading my article and hope you have enjoyed reading this article. You would be highly appreciated if you may share your valuable feedback/suggestions/questions to me at: [email protected]