School of Inspired Leadership, Gurgaon

Backed by a consortium of blue-chip corporates of Indian industry, this newly promoted B-school, which places heavy emphasis on the academia-industry interface, is set to admit its first batch in July

Although the debris of the global economic meltdown has washed up on Indian shores, the education sector — and particularly the business management segment within it — seems recession proof. Now to the 1,500-strong list of B-schools across the country, add the name of the School of Inspired Leadership (SOIL).

Sited on a 30,000 sq.ft campus in the glass-and-steel town of Gurgaon (pop. 2.28 lakh) on the outskirts of Delhi, SOIL is endorsed by a consortium of highly respected business groups and corporates including Infosys, the Aditya Birla Group, the Anand Group, Bharat Petroleum, Dr. Reddy’s Labs, Max India, Sri Ram Finance Corp, Hindustan Lever, Tata Steel, and Schneider Electric among others, who have consented to add value to curriculum design, review the quality of teaching, and commission industry research as also participate in the placement process. SOIL is all set to admit its first batch of 120 students into its first two 12-month study programmes in the academic session commencing July, 2009.

“Our objective is to develop leaders by developing their inherent aptitudes. The equilibrium between individual capability and industry needs can be established only if every student’s bent of mind, competencies and behavioural traits are known, mentored and developed to meet the requirements of the business world. That is why we have designed our Caliper Profile Test, which measures and analyses 25 personality traits of every student to assess his/her strengths in six competency areas of leadership — influencing/managing relationships; problem solving; decision making; time management; service delivery and consulting. This is the most accurate method of assessing qualities for admission of students and nurturing them. The student gets to know about herself and her aptitudes, strengths and capabilities, and together students and teacher can hone and develop them,” says Nishchae Suri, an alumnus of Symbiosis Institute of Business Management, Pune who worked with the US-based Hewitt Associates for 11 years before signing up as president of SOIL last year.

Backed as it is by a consortium of blue-chip corporates of Indian industry, it’s hardly surprising that the manage-ment of SOIL places heavy emphasis on the academia-industry interface. Visiting faculty signed up includes world renowned executive coach Barbara Jones (Executive Mandala), Dr. Francois Dupuy (INSEAD), Dr. Ashok Gupta (Ohio University), Dr. Ramnath Narayanswamy (IIM-Bangalore), Dr. Karl Eric Sveiby, (well-known knowledge management guru) and Dr. Kingshuk Sinha (Carlson School of Management) among others. “Right from selection of students to curriculum design and  research projects, members of our industry consortium and visiting faculty are closely involved,” says Suri.

To start with, in its inaugural academic year the institute is offering two full-time non-residential programmes in human resources leadership targeted at fresh graduates and working executives, and business leadership for working executives with minimum five years of experience. “The curriculum for each study programme offers a flexible combination of rigorous fundamentals and practical experience. Moreover, it will build awareness and appreciation of community partnerships, develop leadership capabilities with compassion and empathy, and help students learn to discharge responsi-bility without having authority. We have tied up with 50 well-known NGOs active in the NCR (national capital region). It will be part of the curriculum for SOIL students to spend one day every week with an NGO of their choice,” says Suri.

Inevitably, considerable pains and resources have been invested in this uniquely ambitious project (capital investment: Rs.25 crore) whose objective is to develop world class business and industry leaders. SOIL’s 30,000 sq. ft campus building includes three fully-wired, smartboard learning studios designed to facilitate “innovative, immersive and interactive learning”; a 120-seats amphitheatre and a library stocked with print volumes and online research material, and desktop computers with high speed broadband connectivity to facilitate research.

For the business leadership programme, the institute’s target market is corporates rather than the students’ community. This is evidenced by the management’s insistence that several years of corporate experience is a pre-condition of admission. There-fore the curriculum of this programme has been designed by senior executives of Indian industry to transform mid-level executives into future leaders and chief executives.

With India’s newest spic-n-span, fully-wired B-school all set to welcome its first batch of HR and business leadership executives next month (July), Suri is busy drawing up capacity expansion plans. “Next year our annual intake will double to 240 students in our two study programmes. Simultaneously we plan to introduce part-time executive education programes delivered in the classroom, distance and hybrid modes. Moreover we have written to eight state governments to allocate us land to establish SOIL B-schools while having submitted an EOI (expression of interest) proposal in partnership with Max India to the Punjab/Haryana governments to set up a residential B-school in Chandigarh. We are planning to expand right from the start because we believe our value proposition — deep academia-industry involvement, personalised student mentoring plan and business leadership development focus — is unique. There will always be a growing market for our exceptional curriculums. Our challenge is to ensure that we scale up without quality dilution,” says Suri.

Wind beneath your wings!

Autar Nehru (Delhi)