Byline: Reported by Arnab Mitra, Kushan Mitra, Priyanka Sangani, E. Kumar Sharma, Supriya Shrinate and Nitya Varadarajan

Sanjiv Lamba boasts the kind of resume any MBA would die for; only, he isn’t an MBA. At 39, Lamba is the managing director of BOC India. He started off as a junior exec, “doing all the things no one else wanted to, including photocopying documents and fetching coffee for the bosses”, as he once mentioned to this magazine; three-and-a-half years later, he earned a two-year stint with the parent, impressed people there sufficiently to have his stay extended by a further two years, and returned to India in 1997, when he was just 32, as General Manager (Finance). In late 2001, after he had turned around the fortunes of the company, he was named CEO (he was then 36, and the average age of employees was 43). “I emphatically disagree with the view that an MBA is sine qua non for running a company or indeed, for rising up the corporate ladder,” he says. “What matters most is the ability to envision and execute; here, experiential learning provides the single most important input in a successful manager’s repertoire.” The man is right, of course, but circa 2004, even he would find it difficult to replicate his success-without an MBA, that is.

It isn’t that business has changed enough in Lamba’s years at BOC-he is a lifer, and has spent 15 years at the company-to make an MBA qualification indispensable, even at the entry level. It is just that the market has changed dramatically since the time Lamba signed on with BOC. Today, no one stops with a mere graduate degree. Those with a bachelors degree in arts, science, or commerce, proceed to a masters degree, either in their own discipline, or in management; and those with a bachelors degree in engineering, opt for a Master of Science degree in the US or an MBA from an Indian or US B-school. At one level, this phenomenon has resulted in the mushrooming of business schools. At another, it means it isn’t really worth its while for a company to recruit from undergraduate campuses; there may be some undergraduates good enough to merit admission to B-schools who choose to work instead, but their numbers are insignificant. In effect, to get ahead and land a job with a blue-chip company, an individual needs to possess an MBA.

Just ask Ravinder Zutshi, Director, Samsung India. The man is a science graduate (from the University of Delhi) and while he has himself not suffered from having not gone to a B-school, he believes the times make it imperative to do so. “The current dynamics of business do not allow growth without being an MBA, and there is no time for any internal (training) initiative on the company’s part.” That is an opinion seconded by B.V.R. Subbu, President, Hyundai Motor India, and another non-MBA (he holds a masters degree in economics from Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University). So, what is it that makes a stint in a B-school crucial? “In addition to developing general management, analytical, and strategic thinking skills, business schools also help in developing attitudinal skills,” says Rajiv Kaul, Managing Director, Microsoft India, and an alumnus of XLRI, Jamshedpur. “B-schools not only teach you resilience, but also help you learn to cope with tremendous pressure.”

Rapporteur line: R. Sridharan, Roshni Jayakar, Brian Carvalho, Swati Prasad, Venkatesha Babu, Shilpa Nayak, E. Kumar Sharma

Would you like a tender, the harder than the CEO’s? Try his wife. Here’s how the characteristics Job Description bed. Wanted: The girl with IQ above average and see. Is it able to cope with the pressure of work husband, interests of their own, to manage the budget, whatever, even if the husband goes to 20 days per month. Children must be high on the requirements of her husband. In the case of a family, we must ensure that in the statutes good. And, oh, he must necessarily be a charming host.

Well, at the beginning of it, try it to a record number of recruitment insurance agent, an entrepreneur, an innovative teacher, a professional Hot Shot, a famous historian of business, or simply a symbol of hope for the unfortunate. Difficult? You bet. Impossible? Not quite. Take a look at our list of First Wives of India Inc-25 of them to be precise. Unlike her famous husband, the woman is not the stuff pink newspapers and magazines business. But despite living in the overwhelming shadow of his famous husband, they managed to carve a meaningful life for herself. A life that lay in spite of its requirements family, affects many others in a variety of possibilities.

So what makes these women preferred to leave the relative comfort of their homes and try to meet a wide range of roles difficult? The answer varies from “if we do not, who will?” Geetanjali of kirloskar: “It’s my way of flirting with my husband” (Ritu Nanda) and “For me, money is not a way of joy, but an instrument to heal” (Sudha Murthy). Immaterial the response, the underlying is the same wire. These are women with great passion, energy without limits, and a lot of creativity.

Yet they are the first to admit that if you’re a CEO wife, your husband and your family a priority. Do you have a late night meeting that the confrontations dinner with your husband is hosting a foreign partner? Improving rescheduling your session. Are you planning a business trip? Go ahead, but make sure it is not with your children in examinations. The point: while these women are ambitious personally, they are not crusaders, to change the world. Instead, they are very intelligent and very happy women, in their diversity and the limited scope live what they believe passionately in

Authors line: Abir Pal, Amanpreet Singh, Roshni Jayakar, Venkatesha Babu, Arnab Mitra, Brian Carvalho, E. Kumar Sharma, Priya Srinivasan

India Inc is increasingly younger. The basis for this statement is large, the fact that the group and the Business Today India is to identify young talent hottest executive, a panel found that some of our best-known management companies in the Search Country, has not had any difficulties, the identification of persons under the age of 25 years 40 Last time, the publication of this attack on a similar exercise (see India’s Hottest Young Executives, September 29, 2002) The Group of evil pressed, the compulsory age, and finally the bar at 42 times are behind the sudden wealth of young talent executive-including reserves, numbered list of our almost 40 and , Flip the argument on its head, as an economy, so that many young people a chance to prove that it’s not all Momentum like any other?

RAJAGOPALAN ‘BALKI’ BALAKRISHNAN

40/Executive Creative Director, Lowe

See the World Go Round

Lowe (formerly Lintas) India has been accepted that the advertising agency, fired the best and the best strategy for heads, are not the best creative professionals. Up to a bearded bear of a man who was in Chennai’s Guindy Engineering College to play cricket (an obsession with gent), when he had classes for their participation in the Master of Computer Applications, in which he returned. Soon, R. Balakrishnan, in Ahmedabad, see some 180 peaks movement (another obsession), and participate in some exercises of the mind, which are all part of a training programme for six months to Mudra Communications. Then there was a year limit to seven Mudra, Bangalore, followed by a brief umschränken at Lintas’ Bangalore. Soon, he was asked, the transition to a city, he did not really want to Mumbai, and assume as Executive Creative Director. Ideas, unforgiving, all sons of this case for a teacher and an insurance exec. “Nothing can be done with a sense (you), when you know you correctly,” he says. “You have to be able to say, at some point, what works and what is undesirable. “A creator animal itself, focuses on its energies on Balki Lowe (with the exception of writing great copy), the creation of an environment that will help provide other creative professionals their best. Leadership adjusts the man who likes spicy vegetarian dishes. In the eighties, more creative, he conducted at Lowe, he says, he has done us some of its best work ever.’s work, wherever you are, find it. Unless, of course, a game of cricket.

Abir Pal -

MUKESH BUTANI

National Director, Global Tax Practice, Ernst & Young

The collector,

The man who was abducted by international taxes of the Independent Review as a leading tax advisers (in September 2003, and it is a publication Money euros) also easily Kricketspieler completed. A knee destroyed Cape expenses Mukesh Butani a chance to compete to play cricket, much to the relief of his parents, the father wanted him to IAS and the mother wanted to be a lawyer. And yes, men who are trained under the legendary Rama Kant Achrekar (Sachin Tendulkar’s coach), and who, on his own admission “has never been so good and academics at school” ends with a degree In trade before the next 24 in the national examinations of some By 31, he was a partner with Andersen.’s desire to become an expert in tax matters was logical to track Butani it. “There are two essential things in the world : Life, so that you need a doctor, and the money you need for a taxman. “And what happens when he can play competitive cricket: Sport is a part of the Butani structure very life. “I am prejudiced against people who have played competitive sport,” he said in reference to his approach to the location. “They are strong, can work as a team and accept defeat.”

JAIPUR, NOV 10: Nishant Bhardwaj, a student at the University of Rajasthan, put yourself in front of flamboyant RA Poddar Institut für Management last evening here, after he was prevented from presenting a memorandum to the Vice-Chancellor in collaboration with a group of students against the delay in reporting results of audits.

The University has been at the meeting of the union in the building, where the event took place.

Bhardwaj relocated Sawai Man Singh hospital with severe burns and burns, the unit to a state of Delhi specializes in the treatment of “.” After the demonstration, Acting Vice-Chancellor VI Rajagopal, a retired officer IAS, management of the work in the absence of a regular representative, his resignation as late night.

Teachers and students of the university to complete a strike today to protest against the incident.

Chief Minister Bhairon Singh Shekhawat has described the incident as “ unfortunate.”CM refuted that taxes indifferenten attitude wasresponsible government of the state of the university. “ It was a degeneration of universities throughout the country and Rajasthan was not an exception.”

Regarding the proposed measures to improve the situation, and the probe itself the victim of trial Shekhawat said that only the Chancellor was able to say something.

According to eyewitnesses, a group of student supporters of Senator Raj Kumar Sharma marched to the Police Institute and invited men are admitted, so far, that in a memorandum to the Vice-Chancellor. They called for slogans began when they are not allowed to be in.

When the police tried to calm them down, they asked to come Rajagopal and accept their agreement. If nothing followed, Bhardwaj, a second year art student Subodh College, berieselte gasoline in a bottle of mineral water on her clothes, turned on a game and afire. Once flamboyant, and he ran around, then began rolling on the ground. One student withdrew his jacket and wrapped in a itto save him, while a few others started to dust putting him before a hospital.