ISB to scale up ties with foreign varsities

Indian School of Business (ISB) is scaling up its partnerships with universities overseas. A slew of tie-ups are on the anvil — one with premier institutions in Brazil, Russia and China, another with Cornell University and a third with Columbia University. The proposed tie-up with institutions in Brazil, Russia and China is expected to generate new courses that will help executives tap business opportunities in these countries. The partnership with Cornell University is for joint research and curriculum development, while that with Columbia University is to develop a rating system for transnational corporates. “The goal of our tie-up with institutes in Brazil, Russia and China is to develop a programme for those who are entering BRIC (Brazil, Russia, China and India) countries to start their operations. It will also help train executives in an existing organization and generate more business opportunities,” ISB dean M Rammohan Rao told ET. According to him, the new programme will help executives understand the factors that triggered growth in the BRIC economies. ISB’s Wadhwani Centre of Entrepreneurial Development (WECD) and Cornell Centre (Cornell University) have agreed to work on a joint initiative, Sustainable Global Enterprise Initiative-India (SEGI). “It is aimed at developing a unique Indian model of corporate sustainability. The initiative will include establishing a Base of the Pyramid (BOP) Learning Laboratory-India. The initiative will also seek to build an executive council of serious and informed business leaders who can help to drive the agenda,” said Rao. Besides an executive council, faculty network and curriculum development, the programme will also involve applied research. It will offer a post PGP immersion programme for ISB graduates, develop an executive education programme and foster faculty and student exchanges across the two institutions. The B-school already has formed academic alliances with the Kellogg School of Mnagement at Northwestern University, the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and the London Business School (LBS). Kellogg, Wharton and ISB signed a memorandum of understanding in November 1997 to share expertise and academic resources.

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Indian students dominate Harvard Business School

For the first time, Indian students will have a majority representation among the foreign students at the Harvard Business School (HBS). Out of the 900 students who joined this year and will graduate in 2009, 38 students are from India or of Indian origin. The Indian contingent has pipped the one from Canada, which usually has the maximum representation. The number of students from Canada has remained constant at 35 for the graduating batches of 2008 and 2009. According to, HBS assistant director in MBA career services, Kurt Piemonte, “Increasingly, we find Indian students want to head back to the country to pursue their careers. There is a real interest in India and the trend of returning to India to work is catching up. The number of students who have not been in the US before and want to return to India to work is rising.” Apparently, this also holds true for second generation Indian students, for whom the only link to India is their parents are also opting to work from the country. HBS alumni in the country have taken keen interest in familiarising HBS students with India during field visits, he added. As is well known, about 15% of HBS’s faculty are either from India or of Indian origin, making them the highest international representation after the US. Today, many of these professors teach cases based on frontline Indian companies like TCS, ITC e-choupal and ICICI Bank. In addition, HBS also holds an India conference annually and invites business leaders from India to share their perspective. Also, as part of its plan to globalise its curriculum, in 2005, HBS opened the India Research Center (IRC) in Mumbai, one of the six research units across the world. The research centre will help build HBS’s knowledge about the Indian economy and the corporate sector through case studies and original research work. HBS plans of offer its first executive education programme in India in February 2008.

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