XLers Unlimited

XLer founded adventure and training firm Exper Education (co-founded by Gaurav Saklani and Tarun Chandna '92 batch) gets profiled in Business Today

And they have actor Jayant Kriplani also along as a faculty! How cool is that!

I stole these photographs from the PicasaWeb Album of Chintan Agarwal (09BMD), who had helped organise this Alumni Get-together - along with the anchors of the Singapore Chapter (Ramesh Ramakrishnan (85BMD), Rajesh Soundarajan (99BMD), Vinod Martin (90BMD), & Ramasubramanian (77BME).

Here are some Pics of the HK Alumni Get-together on May 16th, I got from Hemant Lodha (98BMD):

well... here are some of the pics that I could take (very difficult to take photos, when you are holding a glass in one hand ;0)...

It was a rocking time (even though I missed the pics of the dance-floor in action)... with the delhi weather providing "special effects" (*_^)...

The Photgraphs are uploaded here

or you can view them in a slideshow below:

Some Alumni Achievements (2007-08)

· PL Barua (70PMIR) assumed charge as the Executive Director of the Indian Oil Corporation Limited (Assam Oil Division).

· RS Thakur (72BMD) took over as Executive Director of TACO, the Tata auto-component company.

· Jagdish Dore (73BMD) was appointed the CEO & Managing Director of Matrix Laboratories Ltd. (of Mylan Group).

· Madhukar Kamath (76BMD) Managing Director & CEO of the Mudra Group, was elected as the President of Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAAI).

· S Nandkumar (76BMD) was elected the President of Institute of Management Consultants of India (Hyderabad chapter)

· Bipin Lal (78BMD) was appointed as the Managing Director, Nitrex Chemicals India.

· Prakash Puram (78BMD), President & CEO, iXmatch Inc., was invited to join the Advisory Council on Small Business & Labour of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.

· N Krishnakumar (80BMD) took over as the CEO & Managing Director of Mindtree Consulting.

· Prabhakar Jain (81BMD) joined as the Chairman and Managing Director, Goodyear India Ltd.

· Aneeta Madhok (81PMIR) joined as the Dean, Center for Human Resources (Dubai & Singapore), SP Jain Center of Management.

· NS Rajan (83BMD), Partner (Human Capital), Ernst & Young, was chosen as Global Leader-HR Advisory of Ernst & Young. He was also elected the President (Northern Region), National HRD Network.

· Jaspal Bindra (84BMD) took over as the Head-Asia Region, Standard Chartered Bank.

· K Pandiarajan (84PMIR), Founder-CEO of MaFoi Consulting, was inducted into the Board of Madras Stock Exchange Limited as one of its Directors.

· K Shankar (84PMIR) joined Airtel as the Director (HR).

· Radha Krishnan Nair (84PMIR) joined as the Chief HR Officer of Tata Steel. He was also inducted into the Board of Governors of XLRI.

· Vineet Nayar (85BMD) took over as the CEO, HCL Technologies Ltd from its founder, Shiv Nadar.

· Mahesh Nair (86BMD) published his book of photographs Let There Be Light: Exploring Nature Through Light (Roli Books).

· Sandra (Sequeira) Mahadwar (86PMIR), Sr Director (HR) with KLA-Tencor Corp., was selected to receive the 2008 YWCA’s Silicon Valley Tribute to Women Award, for Executive Leadership.

· Arjun Trivedi (87BMD) was appointed the Head of Nokia Siemens Network, Indonesia.

· Srinivas Duvvari (87BM-Eve) took over as the Managing Director of Rolls-Royce India Ltd.

· Ernst Louise (87PMIR) was appointed as the Global Head (HR) for Essel Propack Ltd.

· Ronald Mark D’Souza (87PMIR) took over as the Vice President (HR), Alcatel-Lucent (India).

· Anurag Parashar (88BMD) took over as the Chief Officer, Customer Management Systems and Shared Infrastructure for all telecom businesses of Bharti Airtel Ltd.

· M Shankar Prasad (88BMD) joined Tata Communications Ltd (formerly VSNL) as President, Broadband.

· Amar Babu (89BMD) was appointed as the Managing Director of Lenova India.

· Satish Nambisan (89PMIR) published his book The Global Brain: Your Roadmap for Innovating Faster & Smarter in a Networked World (Wharton School Publishing).

· Sutapa Banerjee (89PMIR), Head of Private Banking at ABN Amro Bank, was nominated among 20 most successful, rising wealth managers in the world by leading international business magazine, The Institutional Investor.

· Amitabh Jaipuria (89BMD) joined as the Managing Director of Monsanto India Ltd.

· Ajay Bagga (90BMD), CEO of Lotus India Asset Management Co Pvt. Ltd., was elected the Vice Chairman of Financial Planning Standards Board of India.

· Ashish Khera (90BMD) took over as the CFO of Microsoft India

· VS Sridhar (90BMD) was appointed the Chief Operating Officer of the VSNL Global Services.

· R Chandrasekar (90PMIR) took over as the Group Head (HR) of the Noor Islamic Bank (Dubai Investment Group), Dubai.

· Sudip Mall (91BMD) joined as Country Manager (Philippines), Kraft Asia.

· V Chandramouli (91BMD) was appointed as the Director (HR) of Cadbury India

· Jayaram Philkana (91PMIR) took over as the Director (HR) of Cargill Inc.’s Health & Nutrition business at MN, USA.

· NT Arunkumar (91PMIR) took over as CEO of Dun & Bradstreet.

· Ramesh Soundarajan (91PMIR) joined as the Vice President (HR) of Trianz India.

· Ravi Parmeshwar (91PMIR) joined Cargill India as their Director (HR).

· Lokesh Jindal (92BMD) returned from USA to take over as Sr Vice President & General Manager of Computer Associate’s India Technology Center.

· Leena Nair (92PMIR) took over as the Executive Director (HR) of Hindustan Unilever Ltd., thus becoming the youngest and the first woman director in HUL’s Board. She was also featured in the Business Today’s “25 Most Powerful Women in Indian Business List”.

· Sabyasachi Nag (92PMIR) published his first book of poems Bloodlines with Writers' Workshop.

· Salil Raghavan (92PMIR) took over as the Head (HR) of Great Eastern Shipping.

· Sadashiv Nayak (93BDM) joined the Pantaloon Retail India Ltd, as the CEO, Food Bazaar.

· Sharat Dhall (93BMD) was appointed as the Managing Director (India) of the travel portal Expedia.com.

· NV Krishna (93BMD) joined EXL Holding Inc. (NY, USA), as the Vice President and Chief Sales and Marketing Officer

· Amitabh Hajela (93PMIR) joined as the Vice President and Global Head of Human Resources of the ExlService Holdings, Inc, USA.

· Uday Shankar Sinha (94BMD) took over as Executive Director of PepsiCo India.

· Biplob Banerjee (94PMIR) joined Nokia Siemens Networks as Director (HR – Global Services, India).

· Raj Ambekar (94PMIR) moved to the shipping & logistics company, Maersk, as the Head (HR) for South Asia.

· Naveen Kumar (94PMIR) took over as the Vice President (HR) of Lehman Brothers, India.

· V Satish (94PMIR) took over as Sr Vice President (Global HR & Recruiting) at AztecSoft.

· Ramki Sundaram (95BMD) was appointed the CEO of Air Deccan.

· Suman Bose (95BMD) joined Dassault Systemes (part of French Dassault Group) as the Country Head – India.

· Brajesh Bajpai (96BMD) moved into an enlarged role as the Head of Middle East and North Africa Region of Marico’s International Business.

· Ketan Awalegaonkar (98BMD) joined McKinsey & Co. as Associate Principle & Leader for North American Operations Practice, USA.

· Indraneel Roy (98PMIR) took over as the Global Head of Hewitt Leadership Consulting.

· Gaurav Lahiri (00PMIR) was elected as the Partner, Hay Group. He also co-authored the book The Indian CEO: Portrait of Excellence (Sage Books).

· Kulshaan Singh (01PMIR) took over as the Country Manager (Singapore), Hewitt Associates.

· Tanmay Prusty (06BMD), Sales Manager with ITC, won the south zone BusinessToday ACUMEN 2007, and was the runner-up in the national finals.

· Jishnu Dasgupta (06BMD), Sales Manager with ITC, and joined as bass guitarist and backing vocals with the Hindi Band “Swarathma”, which won the Best Band prize in All India City Radio Finals.

In his email he writes:

After almost 5 years of being with SAP Labs today is my last day.

In march I will be joining Aztecsoft in Bangalore as SVP – Global HR and Recruiting. I am looking forward to new challenges of leading the HR function globally.

Quatrro BPO Solutions’ chief HR officer, S Varadarajan , 42, is a seasoned executive with a well spread experience across diverse sectors and companies – the Tatas, KPMG, PwC, American Express, Spectramind. Starting with American Express, Raja — as he is fondly called — is also a BPO industry veteran, having worked in the sector since 1994.

Now an active member of NHRD network, BPO HR forum at Nasscom, Raja is helping Quatrro grow exponentially – in two years the company has added 1,800 staff, snapped up three companies and is expanding into a range of specialised BPO businesses. The XLRI alumnus spoke about the BPO industry, the challenges it faced as it evolved and some lessons he has learnt managing Gen-Y.

Madan Pillutla (pmir 90) has taken over as the Chair of the OB Area at the London Business School, following his promotion as a full Professor at LBS.

Madan is also incidentally the OB Area Leader at ISB Hyderabad.

We’ve got an XLer who’s posted on the Official Google Blog, and thereby becoming the XL blogger with the largest audience for a single post (note that the blog has an estimated 638,000 readers!)

Manoj Verghese XL pmir 97, head of HR Google India posted this some days ago.

Happy New Year dear friends. Here are some great pics of the XL Alumni Homecoming in November 2007 to start off the year on a great note! Thanks to Mr. N Venkatesh !

Sandra Mahadwar (IR 86) has been selected to receive a 2008 YWCA of Silicon Valley Tribute to Women Award (TWIN) and will be honored at an Awards Dinner on Thursday, May 15th at 6:00 p.m. at the Fairmont Hotel in downtown San Jose.

The Tribute to Women Awards Program is in its 24th year and has long been considered one of Silicon Valley's most prestigious awards. The purpose of the Tribute to Women Awards Program is to honor both wom en who exemplify excellence in executive-level positions and the companies who employ them. She has been nominated by John Kispert for this award based on the outstanding achievements and critical contributions she has made to her company. 

From the XLRI blog:

Head honchos from the FMCG giant Proctor & Gamble (P&G) visited XLRI today to select a winning idea which could give them big returns in the global market.

The move comes in wake of P&G taking over the popular men’s brand Gillette globally.

Significantly, XLRI was the only B-school that the FMCG giant approached.

The contest, named “The Big Leap”, saw an enthusiastic participation from 33 groups at XLRI, out of which seven ideas were finally selected for today’s presentation by the FMCG major. The event was aimed at the analysis of various management-related issues involved in the acquisition of Gillette by P&G.

But what marked the highlight of the entire event was that the four-member jury from the multinational — comprising Varun Bhatia, VP (HR), Asia Pacific region, Mohit Nayyar, country HR manager India, Sonali Roychowdhury, senior HR manager India and Surya Rai, HR manager products and supply — were all former XLRI students. For the jury, it was a homecoming.

Jishnu Dasgupta, joins the Indian Folk/Fusion Band Swarathma as bassist. The music is an earthy mix of Carnatic Classical, Indian folk and Rock.

Check out the music at www.swarathma.com

Bangalore junta could into Radio One 94.3 FM every afternoon to hear them

The Times of India group has started a competition for selecting a national political leader for India who would be eventually trained in the John F. Kennedy School of Political Leadership. Post-training he/she would be provided with seed funding/media support to contest Lok Sabha
elections in India. Two XLers have reached the regional finals who would eventually go through to the National finals –

• Mr. Sandeep Agarwal
• Ms. Aparna Banerjee

This rounds winners would be determined on the basis of votes received by the candidates through online or SMS voting. You can vote for them by clicking here: http://lead.timesofindia.com/voteing_Kolkata.asp or sending in a SMS. To know more about the contest and selection process, please click here: http://lead.timesofindia.com/selection_process.asp

Nisha Millet (the national swimming champ) in Bangalore list is the daughter of Aubrey Millet, XLer of 72 batch.

Abhiji Bhaduri recounts on the MBA Orkut community:

It is official. I am going with HarperCollins. I voted in favour of HarperCollins to publish my novel MARRIED BUT AVAILABLE. I will be working with VK Karthika, Publisher and Chief Editor. I thought you guys should be the first to know the great news.

Married but Available is the story of Abbey's first 10 years after graduating from MIJ ;-)

Abhijit Bhaduri (PMIR 84) Head of HR at PepsiCo lets us know:

I have played a small role in the film Apna Asmaan. I play Ravi's (played by Irrfan) boss in the office. The film stars Shobhna, Irrfan, Anupam Kher and Rajat Kapur (Bheja Fry fame). The film is about how each one of us has our own little piece of the sky to touch and paint. A heartwarming film. It has won the gold at the International Festival in Stuttgart and now entering the film fest in Argentina. The film is currently playing in theatres. Hope your town has it too.

Have any of you seen it? It is such a strange feeling to see oneself on screen.

Pics from the movie are here. It was earlier called Qatra Qatra Jeene Do

Dear XLers

I have pleasure in enclosing a cordial invitation to attend the first Anniversary of our Ma Foi Foundation (MFF) in Chennai on the 26^th Sept 2007.

We presently have adopted 1130 poor children from the Sivakasi and Chennai areas from 46 schools – they get scholarship, mentorship and career education from 5^th standard to college completion ( Rs 1200 pa upto 10^th std, Rs 1500 pa during higher secondary and Rs 5000 pa during college). All our Corporate Social Responsibility efforts have been integrated under MFF since last Sept. We run a School for the underprivileged in Chennai with about 650 children. We have taken micro-finance to about 8000 women through Self-Help Group and fostered about 450 tiny enterprises. We also run a network of about 172 NGO’s under the CIOSA (Confederation of Indian Organisations for Service and Advocacy) banner. We have also recognized 10 Young Achievers (unmined gems) every year during this function. You can get more details about this in www.themafoifoundation.org

The function will start at 6.30 pm and will see a creative expression by some of our Disha Scholars, recognition of achievements, performance by young artists led by Abhaswaram Ramji/Venky (Venky Monkey fame) and networking. I look forward to your support and wishes,

Regards,

K Pandiarajan (84BMD)

Leena Nair
37/ Executive Director (HR), Hindustan Unilever
Education: BE Electronics and MBA from XLRI
Work Experience: 15 years
Career High: First woman ED at HUL
Hobbies: Bollywood movies, reading, outdoor sports and travelling
Success Mantra: Look for a win-win in every situation

It's a hat trick, in some sense. Leena Nair isn't just the first woman to make it to Hindustan Unilever's Management Committee (mc), but also the youngest Executive Director (ED) and that too one in charge of not a profit centre, but human resources. As the HR boss, Nair heads a team of 250 people who look into the well-being of about 15,000 employees across 70 different locations in the country, including 45 factories and four regional offices.

The 37-year-old Nair joined Hindustan Lever (as it was known until recently) straight out of XLRI, Jamshedpur, 15 years ago, and has risen quickly through the ranks. From being a factory personnel manager to management development planning manager to hr manager for the detergents business, Nair has been there, done that. But how does it feel to become the youngest and only woman Executive Director on the mc in HUL's history? "It is definitely a big honour for me because HUL is not just a big organisation with a great history and heritage, but (my elevation is) also a testimony to how much hr is valued here," says the tall and trim Nair.

She could say that again. Until recently, in most organisations, hr didn't get a seat at the high table. For one, hr wasn't seen as a profit centre and, for another, it was not considered strategic enough. But with talent becoming scarce and the only real differentiator at most companies, boards are waking up to the strategic importance of human resources. No wonder, Nair says her challenge is straightforward. "We have to do well and excel to make a difference to the organisation. My team must also make a difference to excellence in hr in the company and in the country," she says.

On staying put at the FMCG giant, Nair says, "When your job is interesting and you are feeling stretched and challenged, and when you have great bosses and you are working with talented people, you don't want to leave." HUL must be hoping that she can spread the same kind of enthusiasm around the organisation.

You can see what's going on here