12 ET Young Leaders B-School Edition THE ECONOMIC TIMES | MUMBAI | TUESDAY | 24 NOVEMBER 2015 DUMMY PIC A KODAK MOMENT: The 22 students who made it to the final list of ET Young Leaders B-School Edition 2015 in their moment of glory share the stage with 10 leading CEOs of India Inc CEO SPEAKS AMIT AGARWAL Vice President and Country Manager, Amazon India TALENT LOVES COMPANIES The passion and talent that candidates demonstrated were incredible. It really stood out for me...how passionate the future of India is. WITH STARTUP DNA DEV BHATTACHARYA Minutes after a panel of 10 CEOs interviewed 46 aspirants to pick the final list of The Economic Times Young Business Head, Group Corporate Strategy, Solar Power & Leaders B-School Edition 2015, they came together for a discussion on how companies can engage better with E-Commerce, Aditya Birla Group The time is right. Many B-schools. The discussion was moderated by Sandeep Gurumurthi, executive editor, ET Now. Edited excerpts. students from business schools want to do SANDEEP GURUMURTHI something with startups Sanjay Rishi, how and in turn, improve gender diversity in More than 50% of our hires happen through pre- ship. I see a lot of youngsters even now waiting for and the opportunity is right would you assess the talent pool you saw corporate India? placement programmes. We don’t hire from place- instructions, but the market outside is telling you to for conglomerates to step in. today? ment programmes. The second part is engaging. go find and question. In the last couple of years we’ve gone to business VIVEK GAMBHIR Clearly, this is a journey. I schools and given them (students) real-life problems GAMBHIR The way we define organisational SAUGATA GUPTA SANJAY RISHI MD & CEO, Marico I had a wonderful time last year — think we are taking steps, but very small ones. to solve. It’s like outsourcing the problem and we tell structures and teams will go through a significant How do you create an and even better time this year. In general, the qual- We interviewed some women candidates, and we them we will give them support if they need it. shift. I do worry about entrepreneurship because enabling environment for ity of the candidates was much stronger. I also liked asked them, what makes a great leader? The women The last point is empowering them and we are part- the reality is that 90% of these companies will fail women to carry on into the diversity in candidates — not just gender diver- candidates themselves said, ‘he’ should be this or nering with B-schools to create real-life situations. and that’ll be the track record. It will create a bunch the senior level after they sity, but also social diversity. Talent is also coming that. It wasn’t just men, it was also women who were We even organise visits to centres. We’ve seen a lot of youngsters who will be impatient and become dis- have their first kid or take from small towns and from all sorts of backgrounds. constraining themselves with having some kind of of success with this and this way our dependency on illusioned. Some companies see success overnight, a break? That is the crux of And, people who have experience in life-changing preconceived notions of what defines a good leader. placements is less. but then Amit will testify, there are companies like the matter. adversity. Changing these things will take a certain amount of Amazon where it takes a lot of blood and sweat and time. The good thing is a lot more conversations are GURUMURTHI hard work over decades to find success. And I don’t DEV BHATTACHARYA Do you see a tectonic shift in I think the diversity happening; people are at least putting in some kind aspiration as well from five years ago? think business schools today are teaching students DILIP GAUR point came across very strongly, and more power to of measures, targets. Some may argue that a lot of it how to embrace failure. Deputy MD, UltraTech Cement women! is still lip-service, I do feel pretty hopeful that a lot In the last few months there have been three or The startup phenomenon of us are trying to experiment a lot more to make the DILIP GAUR We saw that today itself. While the four companies who have laid off a few people and it has made a huge difference. GURUMURTHI Ajay, what were your key environment more diverse. students are in campuses, they start work on star- has created headlines and angst across the country Students are able to use takeaways? Business schools will have to take a look at how tups. What’s happening is that people are able to where CEOs have been held hostage. their minds more creatively they recruit people; what kind of admission tests use their minds a lot more creatively because of the Long-term value requires a marathon; it’s not al- and create value as well. are there; are those tests much more biased towards startup phenomenon. ways just a sprint. AJAY SRINIVASAN I picked up two major things male skill sets? I think B-schools have a more impor- VIVEK GAMBHIR — a much greater balance between work and other tant job to also actually ensure that they can create GURUMURTHI How can Corporate India Managing Director, Godrej interests, and a lot of people with some really amaz- more diversity in their classrooms, and the faculty Consumer Products engage better with students when their Introducing Changes ing interests outside of work. The second thing was also has to be more diverse. aspirations are with startups? I don’t think business a huge interest in the social sector — I never saw Corporate structures need to schools today are teaching that last year but it was amazing to see the number MENON We have to do something quickly. In the students how to embrace of people who’ve aligned themselves to causes and new Companies Act, it’s almost forcing companies BHATTACHARYA We have this programme called change as we are hierarchical... failure. It’s all about trying spent time on these causes that they’re passionate to appoint women directors. That’s one step. And Bizlabs where we engage with the ecosystem of to become a CEO on day about. I think both are very wonderful things to see the other is B-schools, changing their intake. The startups and we find ways to scale up and how it’s Even our HR policies have to adapt. one. But that’s a long haul. in the youth of today. candidates that we interviewed today, their number like to work in a sophisticated environment. We saw was largely biased towards engineering campuses; Stanford University’s startup programme called PRANAB BARUA REKHA MENON There was such diversity largely biased towards STEM (science, technology, StartX and that’s something which encourages PAI There was a famous book, Who Says Elephants Business Director, Apparel And in the background, from their socio-economic engineering & mathematics), which is okay, but is students who have been to Stanford and want to Can’t Dance? I think most of us big established Retail Business, Aditya Birla background, from the kind of experiences they’ve that what we really need in business itself ? We need come back and use the platform to get incubated and companies are like elephants, and startups are like Group had, also from what they’ve done before starting a fair number of liberal arts degrees. accelerate. They use corporates to engage with and little mice who nick the elephants from the back to The clarity of thought that B-school. I thought to myself, ‘My gosh! Even before I think there’s a possibility waiting to be exploited make them change. Corporate structures need to came through was amazing. they’ve started their MBA they’ve accomplished so GURUMURTHI but B-schools have to start accelerator programmes change as we are far too hierarchical and there are much!’ For a company like Hindalco, and corporates will jump at them. We’ve seen a huge too many layers between the frontline and the top SANJAY RISHI it’s tough to hire someone from a liberal arts excitement from all our colleagues in the opportu- and these things are ossified unless there is an ex- President, American Express, background. The bias towards engineering is nity provided and engage with startups. The time is ternal crisis or stimulus. Even our HR policies have South Asia Diverse Approach obvious. So, how can manufacturing look at a right. Many students from business schools want to to start to adapt to a younger generation that will The idea is how can one more diverse set of people? do something with startups and the opportunity is demand a different way of working than the ‘sir’ and replicate all the excitement B-schools have a more important right for conglomerates to step in. ‘madam’ ways of working seven layers up. and risk-taking capacity of a startup yet give them job to also ensure that they can SATISH PAI To say in order to create gender di- GURUMURTHI Sanjay, what’s your view on GURUMURTHI That’s an upside for a safety-net of a large versity you need to hire from liberal arts is wrong. corporation. That would create more diversity in classrooms this visible shift in ambitions? The brightest Corporate India and technically it would When we hire trainees now, 30 -35% are engineer- may not be available for corporates.