The Alumni Newsletter

From the desk of Faculty Coordinator

15TH FEB,2011

VOLUME 1, ISSUE 1

Dear Alumnus,

It gives me great pleasure to launch the SJMSOM Alumni Newsletter–

“Alumni Connect” !!

SJMSOM is now completing a decade and a half of its existence. The

number of graduates has increased from 40 to 120 every year over

these years. Many of the alumni have great achievements to their

credit. The School has also considerably strengthened its faculty in

various disciplines.

While the alumni have been meeting in Mumbai and at various locations I

believe a stage has been reached when we need to substantially raise

the level of our interaction. With this in mind we share with you the

first issue of “Alumni Connect.”

Alumni Connect is a platform for all of us to share our ideas and take up

activities to make SJMSOM Alumni a very vibrant community. Some of

our recent initiatives have been the development of the online “Connect

Portal”, starting “Reflections ”- a platform for the current students to

interact with the alumni and holding regular Alumni meets.

We now look forward to more participation from the Alumni in all our

activities and in the events held at the School. We also look forward to

better interaction with the alumni through online mentorship forums at

the Connect portal. Further, we plan to institute awards to felicitate

our distinguished Alumni for their achievements.

All these things would be possible with your active participation which

could be through personal interactions as well as the Connect Portal.

Wishing each one of you all the very best in your professional and per-

sonal lives.

With best wishes,

Prof. Anand Kusre

Faculty Coordinator – Alumni Relations Team

Inside this issue:

Avenues’ 10 3

Continuums’10 4

E Summit ‘11 5

Events at IIT 6

Iquiz’ 10 7

Alumni Meets 8

Alumni Achievements

SJMSOM Achievements

9

10

The Team

Events Calendar

11

12

" And in the end it's

not the years in your

life that count. It's

the life in your years."

- Abraham Lincoln

Prof. Anand Kusre

AVENUES 2010, the annual Business festival of

SJMSOM, IIT Bombay was conducted on 23rd-24th

Oct 2010. This year, the theme of the festival was

“Change, evolve and sustain”, a theme that is very

relevant in today‟s fast-changing world which is now

threatened by environmental pressures and inequity.

The event was graced by luminaries including Mr.

Adi Godrej, who gave the key note address, Mr.

Kamal Hassan, Mr. Subrata Roy, Mr. S Guru-

murthy, Mr. Satish Jha and many others.

Avenues included many never-before-seen events

including Nirvikriti- an event to develop a marketing

plan for sustainable tourism in Maharashtra.

Navonmesh- a business plan competition for up-and-

coming innovations provided by the Technopreneur

Promotion Programme (TEPP). The judging panel,

which included Mr. Kumar- VP, SIDBI, really appre-

ciated the event. The event incorporated the chal-

lenge of getting funds and management expertise

from VCs and angel investors.

Pragyaan, the business quiz, was also a huge success,

drawing a large crowd from corporate houses as well

as from B-Schools- with over 250 team registra-

tions from companies such as TCS, IBM etc, and in-

stitutes such as IIMs, SP Jain etc

Ashwamedh- the championship event– where the

participants were required to act as PE investors

to create strategies and make decisions in a

changing economic environment.

Mudra and Mulyankan were the Finance events

which tested the financial acumen and real time

decision making capabilities of the potential

CFO‟S of our country.

Shrinkhala the supply chain event was one of the

most popular ones, with students from all across

the country displaying their operation‟s skills and

proving their mettle.

Abhyutthan was a novel marketing case study

competition where the case studies were actually

developed by the students in association with

Corporates . It provided a great learning oppor-

tunity for the students as well as the partici-

pants.

A huge dose of entertainment was provided by

Mr. Kapil Sharma, a stand-up comedian and win-

ner of “The Great Indian Laughter Challenge”.

The auditorium was packed, and the audience en-

joyed every moment of it.

Avenues 2010

Campus News..!!

Systems Continuum 2010

The Systems Continuum, in association with knowl-

edge partner Deloitte, involved discussions on the

theme: “Evolving role of IT: It’s everybody’s

Business”. The event was flagged off by Dr Karuna

Jain, head of department, SJMSOM, and Kirthiga

Reddy, Director- online operations, Facebook In-

dia. Other speakers included :

Mr. M. G. Raghuraman - CIO, Mphasis

Mr. Amod Vijayvargiya- Director, Global Knowl-

edge & Business Services, Capgemini

Mr. Sanjay Mehta –CEO SocialWavelength

Dr. Viswanath Poosala – Head of Bell Labs - In-

dia, Alcatel-Lucent

Mr. Milind Padalkar – SVP and Head Oracle Uni-

verse, HCL Technologies

Marketing Continuum 2010

On the 24th July 2010, marketing experts from

industry discussed the theme “Marketing 3.0:

From Relationship to Collaboration”. The Speak-

ers included Mr. Mahesh Murthy (CEO-Pinstorm),

Mr. Vikrant Khanna ( VP- Bharti Airtel), Mr. Atul

Sinha (VP- Britannia), Mr. Vivek Sharma (CMO-

Philips India), Mr. Sridhar T. (AVP-Idea Cellular)

and Mr. Prashant Pandey (EVP-GSK).

Finance Continuum 2010

The theme for the Finance Continuum‟10 was

"Financing the Future: Opportunities and Chal-

lenges".The event was inaugurated by

Mr.Dharmakirti Joshi –Chief Economist at CRISIL

and Mr. Anand Bajaj Group Executive Vice Presi-

dent & Chief Innovation Officer, Yes Bank. Other

speakers included :

Mr. Sivaraman – Sr. VP, L&T Finance

Mr. Gopakumar –President,ICICI Securities

Mr. J.Niranjan – Head Investment Banking,

Tata Capital

Mr. Rahul Shukla – Head Corporate Banking,

Citibank

Ms. Latika Kundu – Head, Market Operations,

MCX-SX

HR Continuum 2010

The theme for the HR continuum was “Evolution of

HR as a Strategic Partner”. The keynote speaker

for the day was Mr. Suryanarayan Iyer, currently

working as Director, Pre Sales and Human Capital

Management Solutions, Oracle. Other speakers

included :

Mr Prashant Srivastava, Country Manager &

Managing Partner- Gallup

Dr. Arvind Agarwal, HR Head, RPG Group

Mr.Alok Ranjan,Head of Organization Develop-

ment, SAB Miller

Srihari Udupa, the Chief People Officer at

PWC

Mr. Jon Glass, Director - Credit Suisse

Continuums 2010

Our honored contributor Dr. Shailesh J. Mehta, Mr.

Tulsi Tanti of Suzlon, public policy entrepreneur Mr.

Sam Pitroda along with others graced the event and

talked about the challenges and scope of entrepre-

neurship. The

other events included “Networking Lounge”

where industry behemoths networked with

students and answered all their questions re-

garding business, Start-up Expo was an exclu-

sive initiative that aimed to provide visibility

to some of the most exciting and innovative

startups. Business Mentoring Hub where

startups got 30 min one-on-one inputs from

the domain experts.

There was also a workshop in Business Model-

ing for budding innovators and entrepreneurs.

The Workshop was conducted by Phillipe De

Ridder from Board of Innovation, Belgium.

E-Club in action @ E-Summit –2011

Pavan Thata - Alumnus(2008) received IInd prize in Eureka !!

SJMSOM’s E-Club was formed in March 2007 by a group of SJMSOM students who were enthusiastic about

entrepreneurship. The club augments and complements the efforts of IIT Bombay’s E-Cell.

Faculty and students with Dr. Shailesh J. Mehta during E-Summit

Pavan,Alumnus-2008 batch, along with his

brother Rakesh Thata, added another lau-

rel to the list of SJMSOM achievements

by winning second prize in Eureka, Asia’s

largest B Plan writing competition. They

received a cash prize of Rs 3 lakh. Their

business plan was based on a software

which provides internet security solutions

thus safeguarding from hacking. The tech-

nology is undergoing a patent process.

The Entrepreneurship Cell, IIT Bombay organized E-

Summit 2011 on 6th February,2011. The campus was

flooded with start-ups from IIT Bombay and outside,

fund managers, Venture Capitalists and potential part-

ners. SJMSOM’s E-Club worked along with E-Cell to

make this event a grand success.

Eminent Visits

Honourable Minister of Human Re-

source Development, Shri Kapil Si-

bal unveiled the inaugural plaque

and also delivered a lecture at IIT

Bombay's brand new Victor Mene-

zes Convention Centre (VMCC) on

January 8,2011 .

Victor Menezes, retired Senior

Vice Chairman of Citigroup, Inc. and

a distinguished alumnus of IIT

Bombay (BTech '70 Electrical Engi-

neering),contributed $3 million to-

wards its construction through the

IITB Heritage Fund.

Shri Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Dep-

uty Chairman, Planning Commission,

Government of India, visited IIT

Bombay and delivered his first In-

stitute lecture on "Challenges Be-

fore the Indian Economy" on Fri-

day, December 24, 2010, at the

Victor Menezes Convention Centre

Auditorium. The lecture was organ-

ised by IIT Bombay and supported

by Nomura.

The Russian President Dmitry

Medvedev visited the campus and

spoke to students about various

issues like „WikiLeaks‟, democracy

and India‟s aspirations to become a

permanent member of the UN Se-

curity council.

PG Sports 2010

Badminton

SJMSOM declared its supremacy in

badminton at PG Sports, once again.

With a blemish-less performance in

the early rounds, both the girls and

the boys teams secured gold!! With

this victory, SJMSOM has been the

champion for 2 years running in

badminton.

Table Tennis

The girl's team from SJMSOM

stormed through the competition and

won the first place without dropping

a single set on the way to the title.

The boy's team secured the third

place.

Squash

Aakash (SOM12) secured second

place in the squash playoffs.

SJMSOM thus left its mark on

squash, a sport where we haven't had

much success in the past.

Swimming -

SJMSOM ruled the pool at the girls

swimming events. Anjali (SOM11) se-

cured three positions (first, second

and third) in various events. Neha

(SOM11) secured a silver.

Chess

SJMSOM reached the finals of the

chess tournament but went down to

CSE 2-1 in a best of three.

Events at IIT

I quiz..!! – A Marktrix Initiative

Marktrix club , SJMSOM, IIT Bombay in association with Mahindra Scorpio presented “I Quiz -A na-

tional level business quiz competition” on the 28th of August,2010 which was graced by Mr Avinash Dhar-

madhikari ( IAS ) Ex Director General, Nehru Yuva Kendra Sangathan as the Chief Guest.

The Quiz was hosted by Mr Rohit Nair, founder, editor in chief , www.Quizzing.in.

A few highlights of the event :

600+ teams participated in the online elimination round from 150 B-Schools across India.

50+ corporate entries

10,000 website views within 3 days of the launch and the count reached up to 50,000 towards the

end.( 17 different countries)

The Winning team consisting of– Mitesh Agrawal ( Sun Microsystems ) and Rohan Khanna ( Accenture )

won a cash prize of Rs 60,000 and were also the winners of The Brand Equity quiz in 2009 ..!!

1st runners up were a team from TCS consisting of M Sureshkumar and Aniruddhha Dutta who were the

winners of Tata Crucibles from 2008-2010.

Alumni Hangout @ Delhi..!!

On 19th December, 2010, Team Alumni -

SJMSOM organized a regional Alumni Hangout

in Delhi at the N-Block Cafe Coffee Day at

Connaught Place.

There were multiple rounds of coffee as we

chatted and discussed things. To our surprise

Sarin (2009 batch) read out a couple of his

poems to us which he had written about SOM

and his life in the corporate.

The meet was a success. We all had a lot to gain and we had a good time too. We look forward to more of such hang-

outs and better participation from the Alumni in the future.

Staying in touch ..!!

All India Alumni Meet..!!

The much awaited Alumni Meet of SJMSOM, IIT Bombay was organized on 28th August, 2010. It began with an

address by Prof. Patwardhan who expressed his warm welcome to the home coming students of the institute. It was

followed by an interesting video that showcased the events that had happened over the year at SOM. A discussion

ensued with suggestions from the alumni which opened new avenues for improvements. Sagaran Jos, a student from

class of 2011 was felicitated for his efforts towards creating an official website for the school ( som.iitb.ac.in/

SJMSOM_Connect/ ). Prof Anand Kusre also expressed his warm welcome to the alumni in his address .

Post the formalities the guests were escorted to the famous “SOM WELL” where fun activities awaited them. This

informal get together came up as a platform for interaction between the alumni and the current students. There

were cultural events and fun activities organized by the current students. The occasion was graced by some senior

alumni such as Mr. Krishnan Mani (Class of 1999), Mr. Vishnu Ramachandran (Class of 2002), Mr. Raja Ram (Class of

2004), Mr. Gokul Raj Perumal (Class of 2004) and Mr. Paras Mehta (Class of 2004). The splendid event reached its

apt end with an expression of gratitude by Prof. Karuna Jain, HOD, SJMSOM and a gala dinner.

Akash Mavle

An entrepreneur, a

CTO, a faculty and a

technical expert in IT

are a few attributes

that describe this dis-

tinguished alumnus.

He did his MBA in op-

erations research, business strategy in 1998 from

SJMSOM and is currently pursuing his PhD in entrepre-

neurship also from SJMSOM.

He teaches entrepreneurship at SIBM, Pune as a visit-

ing faculty and the course which focuses on creating

companies/organizations on campus at SIBM has been

designed by him completely.

He has more than 14 years of experience as CEO/CIO

and CTO. Prior to joining his PhD he worked as a CTO at

Clarion Technologies Pvt. Ltd. He has also worked in mul-

tiple Government Projects in the US.

He has also founded two companies namely Eximserve

and Solversa.

Eximserve focused on the B2B market place where he

played the role of Lead Architect in building a sophisti-

cated web based trading platform for trade. Later the

company was sold to an auto parts company.

Solversa, focused on E-business, Manufacturing Solu-

tions, ERPs ( Baan/SAP/Oracle Applications), J2ee

and .NET based development for large enterprise initia-

tives like SCM, CRM and ERP.

He has also worked at Unibex, Mafatlal Consultancy and

Reliance Industries Ltd.

He is a dynamic entrepreneur and a multi tasker. He has

all the right qualities to make it big over time. His deep

technical expertise in IT and non-IT is a differentiator.

We are proud to have him as our alumnus.

Sanjeev Chachondia

This 1997 batch alumnus

of SJMSOM puts up an

example of how hard work

and perseverance can

result in an accelerated

growth.

He has an expertise in

the telecom industry and has honored the posts of COO

and CEO at leading telecom companies.

After completing his MBA at SJMSOM, IIT Bombay he

joined BPL Mobile as the Head of Planning. His technology

management and strategic skills helped him to take up his

new role within BPL Innovision group as Head of Business

Strategy and also Business Head of Western Region at

BPL Broadband.

Thereafter, he moved to Tata group as General Manager

at Tata Power‟s Broadband division. He was part of "Tata

Group Executive Leadership" plan and within a period of

three years he was awarded the post of Vice President-

Strategy and Corporate planning at Tata Teleservices.

He then joined Essar Telecom as the COO. In 2008 he

was invited to drive BPL Mobile (India) Ltd as the Direc-

tor and CEO of the firm. He led the company to increase

its market share in Mumbai market and led the brand

transition from BPL Mobile to Loop Mobile.

He currently works as an Operating Partner at New Silk

Route, USD 1.4 Billion growth capital fund focusing on

India and South Asia. He leads the Telecom and Solar

Energy sectors and is a Director on Boards of the portfo-

lio companies in these sectors. He is also an Adjunct

Faculty at SOM and is an advisor to the Technology

Strategy Lab (TSL).

His accelerated growth trajectory has set a precedent

for others to follow and we are extremely proud to have

him as an alumnus of SJMSOM,

IIT Bombay.

Alumni at the top..!!

School Achievements 18th Business School Affaire & Dewang Mehta Business School Awards:

# B-School with Best Academic input in IT

# Best Faculty in Operations Management: Prof. Rahul Patil

# Best Faculty in Information Technology - Prof. R.M. Sonar

# Best Student in Management - Mr. Vishal Singh

STAR NEWS National B-School Awards:

# Best B-School using Technology in Training / Education

# Outstanding B-School (West)

DNA & Stars of the Industry Group - Innovative B-School Awards:

# Innovation in Building Academic & Industry Interface

# Best Teacher in Marketing: Prof. Arti Kalro

Students’ Achievements

Vishal Singh from SOM 11 won the prestigious Best Management Student award with a cash

prize of INR 0.2 million at Dewang Mehta B-school awards 2010. Over 1200+ students com-

peted for the coveted title.

A team from SOM 11 comprising of Kundan Shimpi, Surinder Singh and Nitin Raghuvanshi won

the First Prize at Vista 2010 IIM Bangalore - Operations Strategy Event.

Sandeep Bhatia and Narender Dhankhar from SOM 11 were all India Winners for

devising a go to market strategy for Amul.

Sanjoe Tom Jose from SOM11 presented a Research Paper on Innovation & Knowledge Man-

agement at the Keio University, Tokyo.

Kunal Roy from SOM11 was adjudged the winner in an Article writing competition organized by

“IIM Shillong”

A team from SOM12 comprising Ravi Shankar D, Neerad Agarwal, Madhuri Wagh and Jubin

Varghese were the winners of Konsulenti - Flagship strategy event of IIM Kozhikode,

Backwaters 2010

SJMSOM reaches Heights..!!

Vishal Singh(left) and Sanjoe Tom Jose(right) at Dewang Mehta B-School Awards

Akansha Gupta ( akansha.gupta@sjmsom.in )

Akansha is a fresh Electrical Engineering graduate from Nirma Institute of Technology, Ah-

medabad. She is a marketing enthusiast with a keen interest in Operations. She is an active

member of the Marktrix club and is also an Editor of the L!VE magazine.

Amit Kumar ( amit.kumar@sjmsom.in )

Amit has completed his computer science engineering from MIT Manipal in 2007. He has a rich

and varied work experience of 3 years in IT, working in Virtual, Storage and Mobile VAS do-

main. He wants to pursue his career in Marketing and is an active member of the Marktrix

club.

Ankit Bansal ( ankit.bansal@sjmsom.in )

Before joining SJMSOM, Ankit worked as a Software Engineer for 32 months at Infosys

Technologies Ltd., Bangalore. He is interested in the field of Finance and is also a member of

Finesse club at SJMSOM. He contributes regularly to leading Business newspapers by his arti-

cles covering different areas of Finance.

Ashish Nahata ( ashish.nahata@sjmsom.in )

Ashish holds a Bachelor‟s degree in Mechanical Engineering from NIT Tiruchirappalli. He has a

rich experience of two years in Operations Domain working in Bharat Petroleum Corporation

Limited and Emami Biotech. He is a Finance enthusiast and an active member of the Finesse

Club.

Nisarg Gandhi ( nisarg.gandhi@sjmsom.in )

Nisarg is an Electronics and Communications Engineer from Dharmsinh Desai University,

Nadiad, Gujarat Subsequently he worked for 34 months at Space Applications Centre, ISRO

as an embedded systems and digital logic designer. He has a keen interest in supply chain man-

agement and is an active member of the E- Club. He is also the Secretary of the Alumni Re-

lations Team.

Rakesh V. ( rakesh.v@sjmsom.in )

Rakesh is a graduate in Electronics and Communication from College of Engineering, Thiru-

vananthapuram. He worked for couple of years with Toshiba, Bangalore, as a Software Engi-

neer. Apart from being a member in Alumni team, he is also the student Coordinator for Tech-

nology Strategy Lab ( TSL ) and a member of Consig, the consulting club.

Sudhanshu Pandey ( sudhanshu.pandey@sjmsom.in )

Sudhanshu has worked at HSBC Global Technology as a Software Engineer for 3 years and

contributed in developing BFSI applications in HSBC Group. He is the head of the E-Club and

an active member of the Finesse Club.

Introducing the Team 11’..!!

Block your Dates..!!

February - March 2011

Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun

14 15 16 17 18 19 20

21 22 23 24 25 26 27

28 1 2 3 4 5 6

7 8 9 10 11 12 13

14 15 16 17 18 19 20

This newsletter is an attempt by us to connect more with you, We

need your suggestions on how to improve our interaction.

We also invite articles and views from the Alumni for the newslet-

ter. You can also share your experiences at the school.

We request you all to strengthen the database by updating your

information regularly @ the Connect Portal.

Your suggestions and feedback are highly valued.

Contact us at :

Teamalumni@iitb.ac.in

www.som.iitb.ac.in/SJMSOM_Connect/

Upcoming Events

1st March- Post Budget

Analysis session with

“NDTV Profit”

5th & 6th March–

“KALADARSHAN”- The An-

nual IITB Arts and Photog-

raphy Workshop

12th March- H.R Contin-

uum

13th March- Consulting

Continuum