W
hen asked that perennial question, “What are your plans, young man?”, the 24-year-old MBA was almost smug in his response. “Choices sir, I have choices,” adding that for now he was just “exploring his options”. It is indeed a unique time to be in a job market brimming with new fields you hadn’t even heard of a decade ago. But how many of these young people are “doing good”, shorthand for that old, fusty description: ‘contributing to society in a meaningful way’? Happily, we found a growing tribe of managers are exercising the right choices. Some are even making money. Here’s to the Do-Gooders.
The Good Souls Inc
Some MBAs out there are making more meaningful choices
Photograph by Narendra Bisht
Aparna Bhatnagar and Vinay Choletti, both 32
IIM-A batchmates
Now: Co-founders of Green and Good Store, Jaipur
“IIM-A was very practical in its teaching. Running a business is about managing people. My corporate exposure helped me put the right processes in place.”
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parna, an economics major and keen social worker, was clear about why she wanted to do an MBA: a long-standing desire to learn how to link rural development with social entrepreneurship. But it took time to realise her dream. She worked with a clutch of top Indian companies and multinationals—ICICI Bank, Citibank and Dun & Bradstreet Consulting—before starting an online handicrafts and green gift articles store with batchmate and life partner Vinay in September 2009. The idea: partner with artisans living in remote areas of Rajasthan. Aparna feels good that their work—with 30 rural NGOs and artisan groups—is helping them link up with even markets in the US. “Our partners are in extremely remote areas, like the Kavads who make wooden storybooks. Through the online platform, our work helps us promote green products as well as leverage consumerism and ensure the right price for the artisans,” says Aparna. It’s a politically correct platform too—the store identifies with the social/environmental concerns of picky buyers overseas. Aparna also knows what made it all happen: the MBA provided the viable business plan.
—Lola Nayar
Photograph by Nilotpal Baruah
Dhimant, 32, Anuradha Parekh, 31
ISB batchmates
Now: ‘The Better India’ website
“Mainstream media has no positive news to report. We wanted to showcase stories that give people ideas to go on, do something positive themselves.”
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he Better India (www.thebetterindia.com) has just one promise, it wants to tell us about the things that do go right while also encouraging people to do the same. The website went live about three years ago, linking to positive news content elsewhere on the web. Six months after inception, TBI was sourcing original content from a pool of freelance writers. But TBI isn’t any beatific gesture; it’s aimed at generating revenues. Signs that it will are already there—advertisers have already come onboard seeing the site’s positive content. It helps that there are about 2,000 unique visitors daily. Dhimant and Anuradha, who manage the site from Bangalore, say it broke even six months ago.
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—Debarshi Dasgupta
Photograph by Amit Haralkar
K. Ramkumar, 26
IIT Bombay, Boston Consulting
Now: CEO, Avanti Fellows
“I drew upon the analytical skills honed in the IITs, and the formidable pan-IIT alumni network, to give a boost to Avanti.”
K
rishna Ramkumar spent barely two years in the premier Boston Consulting Group before he quit just after his first promotion. So what did the senior associate want to do? Well, start an enterprise in “the world of development”. Avanti Fellows took shape to fill a rather unique space—connect students from low-income homes and low-cost schools with premier coaching (like Brilliant Tutorials and IIT-Pace) and exclusive mentoring (all IITians) to prepare them for the ferocious competitive exams. In its second year now, Avanti supports about 120 fellows across seven cities in India, mainly those with or near an IIT campus. “Our mentors in the cities put in about three hours a week and it benefits them too,” says Ramkumar, who has two other full-time “employees”, one from IIT and the other from IIM. Eventually, Avanti will choose student-fellows aspiring to study medicine, law, design and so on.
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—Smruti Koppikar
Photograph by R.A. Chandroo
Nagaraj Krishnan, 38 Thiagaraja School of Management
Now: Joint chairman, Aparajitha Corporate Services, Madurai
- “Contract labour is a highly exploited segment. I reach out to them and ensure they get minimum wages and legal entitlements.”
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fter working for four years with the TVS group, Krishnan—a maths graduate and an HR MBA—decided to start his own enterprise in partnership. The aim: helping pan-Indian companies comply with the varied labour laws across states. Non-compliance of different laws (even due to ignorance) can expose companies to financial/legal risks. “My training has helped me to ask the right questions and manage day-to-day work better by putting in place the right controls and management systems,” says Krishnan. He is particularly happy that his efforts to ensure compliance directly help the workforce, particularly contract labour (“across 175 firms, there are over 10 lakh contract labour I work with”). From small to over Rs 200-cr turnover firms, Aparajitha has a varied client base. Growth has come more through references. It seems there have been quite a few.
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—Lola Nayar
Charu Lata Sharma, 28, IIM-A
Now: Rural development consultant
“Knowing the right management application helps in the project designing stage...I am fortunate to be working in this project.”
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software engineer, Charu got drawn to social work during her three-year stint at Infosys and exposure to its CSR activities. That said, while she was doing her MBA, Charu didn’t have any clear plans to take up social service or get into rural development programmes. “It was only after my MBA that I felt a conscious call to work in the social sector,” says Charu, who says she’s “lucky” to get a chance to work with the Centre’s new Rural Livelihood Mission immediately after graduating from IIM-A this year. Now designing pilot projects in Rajasthan’s interiors, Charu is always on the move. The plan is to create a self-help group model of institutions of the poor and link them to sustainable livelihood (like Bihar’s Jeevika model) programmes.
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—Lola Nayar
Photograph by Mayur Bhatt
Nandini Rawal, 51 Bhushan Punani, 56, Both MBAs
Now: Blind People’s Association
"What’s taught in IIMs? To manage people, products and profits. People are important, instead of products we have ideas, instead of profits we have life changes.”
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ot far from the iconic IIM campus in Vastrapur, Ahmedabad, is the low-profile campus of Blind People’s Association (BPA). Dr Bhushan Punani made good that short distance in 1979 when he graduated from the IIM and gave himself two years in the unconventional sector. He completed 32 years last week. Nandini Rawal, also an MBA, joined a couple of years later. Together they have driven BPA from a single campus attending to the needs of visually challenged people to 15 campuses across Gujarat. “We would have touched at least five lakh needy disabled people in Gujarat so far,” says Rawal. She and Dr Punani brought in management systems, inventory controls, backward-forward synergy, transparency and computers to expand the scale and scope of the organisation.
—Smruti Koppikar
Photograph by Nilotpal Baruah
Yogesh Devaraj, 43, BSc, RV College of Engineering, Bangalore
Now: Part of Anna’s India Against Corruption
“I took inspiration from the freedom struggle, where people disappeared from public life and worked for the country...my family supports me.”
E
ven after working in the corporate sector for 20 years, 12 of them in the US, it wasn’t a difficult decision for Yogesh to leave all that and join a movement to help society in India. Having worked at some of the best companies in the IT sector—Cisco Systems, Oracle Corporation and Novell Inc, he had already seen the best side of life. But while in the US, he also saw how government departments worked. Back in India in 2008, the rampant corruption in government departments bothered him no end. Currently leading the movement’s activities in Bangalore, he’s already made a difference by organising a citizen’s referendum on the Jan Lokpal Bill. “Looking back, I am extremely happy. Earlier there was a passion but I couldn’t find the path to serve the people. Now I have found it,” he says. Even though his wife and children are supportive of Devaraj’s decision of quitting a high-paying corporate job, he’s more than aware of the potential financial pressures (the family’s cut down on expenses). That’s why Devaraj plans to set up his own venture next year, which will help fund “bigger issues to serve the people”.
—Arindam Mukherjee
Photograph by Sandipan Chatterjee
Vinayak Lohani, 34, IIT and IIM alumnus
Now: Heads Parivaar
“We have to get out of this mindset that a lucrative career is the only driving force.”
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ohani was 25 when he realised that he wanted to spend his life in the service of others. After IIM he did voluntary work with various NGOs working with underprivileged groups like slum-dwellers and sex workers before starting his own organisation, Parivaar, in Calcutta. That was in 2003. Lohani’s focus is on underprivileged children. “The idea was to nurture the potential for excellence latent in each child,” he explains. Parivaar started with just three children. Today it works with 607 boys and girls from various parts of the country. Parivaar volunteers are especially focusing on children from Maoist-dominated and other disturbed areas. “We have to get out of this mindset that a lucrative career is the only driving force,” says Lohani, who attributes his calling to growing up in a family where the emphasis had always been placed on idealistic values.
—Dola Mitra
Photograph by R.A. Chandroo
Preetam Alex, 26, MBA, Singapore Institute of Commerce
Now: Project director, Akkarai Trust
“The difference between me and others my age is the exposure I got. As for money, this is all I need.”
“I
don’t want to sit in an office, I’d rather be in the field meeting people while also funding them,” says Preetam. And that’s why he chose to join a micro-finance company as project director. He’s worked with some 150 self-help groups in Chengalpet off Chennai and also runs medical/skill training camps. Preetam is a green warrior too—he’s president of Youth ExNoRa, a zero waste management project in a Chennai slum. Anna ’s crusade against corruption too inspired him. Some months ago, Preetam got pulled over for driving fast and the cop asked for Rs 100 to “end the matter”. He, however, insisted they challan him. After a 20-minute wait—and the cop got the challan book—that’s exactly what happened.
—Pushpa Iyengar
Photograph by Jitender Gupta
Rohit Pande, 37, IIM-C
Now: Class Teacher Learning System, Gurgaon
“An MBA after engineering is of minimal utility as I lacked real-life experience. It can open some doors but it is from experience that one learns most.”
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fter a stint in London as management consultant, Pande decided to move back to India and start an e-classroom venture with fellow IITian Sameer Buti. “Face-to-face teaching has been accepted as the best and no software can capture the rapport and influence teachers have on students. That said, not all teachers are good. So though technology is not a substitute, it can definitely be a support to a good teacher and a substitute for a below-average teacher,” says Pande. He and his partners feel there is a growing realisation for the need to change. Thus was born the idea to support schools with science and math labs as well as English teaching modules. Slowly the idea is taking root and many schools have been willing to adopt technology to bridge the gaps in school teaching, particularly in small towns.
—Lola Nayar
Photograph by Mayur Bhatt
Ravi Kumar, 24, Mohit Garg, 21, IIM-A
Now: Anti-corruption helpline
“We envision the helpline as a sort of Jan Lokpal, except that we can’t take (legal) action. But we can empower people with anti-corruption info.”
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umar and Garg, second-year students at IIM Ahmedabad, have been running around for the past seven months to get an anti-corruption helpline off the ground. They’ve been to villages, visited bureaucrats and analysed government-citizen interactions at RTOs and sundry offices. They’ve run a brief pilot. It, however, buckled under the weight of prank callers. The duo are now considering getting legal help from “eminent persons” to tell people how to deal with difficult bureaucratic situations. “Once they make an official complaint etc and report progress to us, we will help escalate matters,” says Kumar, who plans to work in rural education once he graduates. It’s still a long way from home, but chugging along.
—Pragya Singh
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