From a showroom assistant to a take a seat in board room, Subrahmanian Seshadri journey has been exciting and an inspiration to today's youth.
A well-known face in the publishing industry and in schools, Seshadri has been associated with schools from the start of his career at Oxford University Press India.
From a showroom assistant to a take a seat in board room, Subrahmanian Seshadri journey has been exciting and an inspiration to today's youth.
Of dreaming big and never giving up, being better every day; of never tiring; of sticking to the morals and traditions irrespective of the times. Also, of being a stickler for quality; of upholding relationships; of never taking short cuts; of being the gold standard; of running your own race, his life is full of lesson, inspiration and motivation.
Seshadri talks about his five decade long journey and shares his thoughts on the development of the publishing industry in India.
He also shares his real-life basic education struggle of his childhood and said, "the village where I was born on the banks of the Cauvery River in Tamil Nadu is still with one school with a single teacher and around forty students from the village. Most governments are closing their schools and this is not a good development. Governments need to reconsider this matter."
He added" We all should appreciate that the school is a unifying factor for all communities and let us build this with that one point of agenda, that we are all equals in the classroom."
Seshadri believes that education is not the responsibility of only the government. There are many stakeholders and each of us will have to take our individual responsibility to bring in best practices within the education eco-system.
Seshadri stated that it is imperative for the publishing industry to form new partnerships with the government as well as private entities to successfully serve a population as large as India’s. Simultaneously, the government should also leverage the publishing industry, to not just implement its immediate reforms but also to facilitate the growth of human capital in the long run. As the government has approved a plan to increase public spending on education to 6% of GDP, the publishing industry will play a greater role in directly contributing to economic output and employment, while supporting more than 300 million citizens.
A well-known face in the publishing industry and in schools, Seshadri has been associated with schools from the start of his career at Oxford University Press India.
After 25 years in OUP, he continued his career in publishing with Dorling Kindersley, India serving as Executive Director and played a key role in the company’s revamp strategy marketing and publishing systems. He also served as consultant to Pearson Education, Madhuban Books, HarperCollins India & Future Kids. He is on the advisory board of Manan Books.
Subrahmanian Seshadri (known as Sesh) has been engaged in the school education space for nearly fifty years. He writes regularly on Education and EdTech. His engagement with schools on a day-to-day basis provides him the insight on what is the ground reality in respect to classroom teaching and the outcomes.
In the 50th year of my career, Seshadri feel it is an appropriate time to reflect on the journey that has brought me to the point where he is today. He is proud to be a part of this field.
Seshadri believes that he has an amazing 50 years and during the course of time he met so many inspiring people along the way. Basically, as per him, he wears many hats and juggles his time and effort deftly among various establishments.
He is a successful consultant and an entrepreneur. He established a publishing-consulting company Overleaf in 1999 (Renamed as Overleaf Books LLP) which passionately works towards furnishing classrooms with quality learning and providing world class teaching resources.
In his early days, he started the Lonely Planet India entity and played a pivotal role in Lonely Planet’s entry into the Indian market. As part of his remit, he handled ethical audit inspections for BBC. He was on the Lonely Planet India Board for over 13 years. He leads PageMajik as a Chief Commercial Officer which aims to increase efficiency using AI driven technology in the publishing process which will be a disruptor & will save significant costs.
Seshadri is also the trustee of Neel Bagh Group of schools founded by David Horsburgh. Furthermore, he was the Founder Director at Textech (which is now Jouve.com) that specializes in providing academic solutions in the form of books and eBooks that enable publishers to create, manage, repurpose, and distribute content. This has helped him to deep dive and understand the current EdTech space.
Seshadri is the President, Association of Publishers in India (API), PR Officer of TAISI (The Association of International Schools of India), Member on the Governing Body of Indian Reprographic Rights Organization (IRRO) & Executive Committee member of Publishing Committee, FICCI. Executive Committee member of FPBAI.
He has the privilege of having visited 3000 schools and counting. His tireless energy and enthusiasm to help provide educational solutions continues to take him to classrooms.
Even though you dislike these celebrations of his career milestones, his 50 years of the most illustrious and glorious of careers is no small accomplishment.
Seshadri is truly an inspiration to many young people. His journey will inspire everyone who aims to join the Publishing industry.