Alumni Speak

As President of the Alumni Association, what is your charter?

This is an honorary position from which I can drive alumni connect for growth, development, improvement of curriculum, mentoring of students, and of course for placements. This is to benefit the ecosystem - students, alumni and the institute.

We believe the alumni has been very active in fundraising?

There have been significant contributions, of course. As individuals, through drives and through organisations that alum are a part of. That said, there is a lot more that we can do. Towards this end, we have processed the necessary government documentation that qualifies XLRI for CSR spend. We hope this will make it easier for people in positions of power in profitable corporates to allocate some of their CSR funds for India’s first B-School.

As of today, two batches – the Batch of 1984 and the Batch of 1987 – have raised funds for classrooms in the new learning centre. We are hopeful that more batches will contribute.

For the Platinum Jubilee year, we are trying to gift the institute a Research Scholars’ Block.

Why specifically research scholars block?

In alignment with the institute’s own goals, we want to facilitate research efforts so that XLRI has more publications in A grade journals. We want our scholars to benefit from living on campus so that they can focus on their academic endeavours. This is important for alumni as well as publications are an important parameter for rankings and rankings impact the market value of members of the alumni.

Going forward, what are your expectations from the institute?

That the XLRI tradition of human touch in the process of teaching management continues. So that we continue to have people who have been nurtured in the ethos of connection and service. We want to support the institute’s social engagement endeavours – we must protect the human value of XLRI at all costs. And with the Society of Jesus at the helm, I have no doubt that this will remain so.