Sukant Arora was a student of the founding MBA batch 2010-12 at Jindal Global Business School (JGBS). He didn’t have the B-School’s track record to go by, but he made his decision after personally interacting with the faculty. He just felt that this was the place he had to give his two years for management education.
“Many of them had vast experience and had worked with B-Schools like IIM Ahmedabad, MICA & other prestigious ones across the globe. They also had industry and research background, which reflected in their ability to mentor us and share the practicalities of management. Today, I believe I am an entrepreneur because of my mentors at the institute,” says the Vice President, Rmoney India & organiser of India’s largest wedding exhibition ‘The Indian Wedding Show’.
Sukant claims that it might have been the first batch, but the B-School had the infrastructure, programs and pedagogy in place to produce industry-ready students. “Before coming to JGBS I would really struggle with communication. I would fear speaking in front of a crowd, but the communication classes we had and the way they were conducted helped me shed those inhibitions and improve drastically over a period of time,” he says.
“Every trimester we would have team building sessions, which ensured that we imbibed a crucial quality required in the corporate world. Our faculty team tried to make us independent decision makers, think out of the box and not rely on books.”
Recounting the first year, Sukant says that “JGBS offered its first batch of students valuable exposure through well-structured industry visits and relevant guest lecturers with faculty members from renowned institutes and industry professionals.” However, Sukant believes that the B-School stood out for the hands-on training it offered students. “I got a chance to be closely involved with the creation of the incubation centre and it taught me a lot about running a business,” he elaborates. “Pedagogy involved spontaneous presentation challenges and was loaded with instances where we had to put theory to practice. We were urged to not just learn theories but to question, analyse and deliberate on them using logical reasoning. We were always taught to find solutions to problems through critical thinking.”
Importantly, the students were guided by mentors every step of the way. And, Sukant explains, they recommended that he should focus on his family business, which is exactly what he did after three months of working in the corporate world. “I realized pretty quickly that it wasn’t for me and decided to focus on the business. I am glad I didn’t waste a lot of my time trying to figure out if I would like to make my way up the corporate ladder. I came to JGBS as a fresher, but I left the B-School with experience to take important decisions of my life.”
Today, Sukant is successfully involved in running two growing businesses. Ask him on what criterion he uses for hiring management graduates, he is quick to add: “You can have good finance knowledge, but still not be a good team player, or be skillful in applying yourself to something you have not learnt, or get influenced by others easily. And in each of these cases, you will not be a right fit for our organizations. These are some of the things I learnt from my faculty at JGBS who put in a lot of emphasis on application of concepts and team work.”
Finally, Sukant says that he is still in touch with his faculty, who act as mentors and with almost the entire batch. “Some of them are almost like family” he concludes.