Prior to FPM from IIM-Indore, Payal worked in the corporate sector; first with Airtel as a Segment Manager, then with ICICI as a Regional Sales Manager, and finally as a Group Manager with Radio Mirchi, before moving out of the fast lane into the world of academia.
“Joining IIM-I, and completing my Fellow Programme, has been the best career move. Corporate world is supposedly more exciting, better paying; but it is rather restricting. One is focused on only one brand, one product, one industry. Being in academia I can really expand my knowledge base, draw stimulation from multiple brands and industries, learn about something completely new, have an opinion about issues beyond my immediate environment and research to fulfill my intellectual curiosities. Enrolling in a doctoral programme was my way of getting into a career path that is more intellectually stimulating. Industry experience in sales helped me orient my learnings better in few topics, not all.”
Prof. Payal is a fair example of the fact that, with top-notch B-schools now paying a fairly competitive pay packages, it’s not just the career academic, but also the well-entrenched corporate honcho, that is looking at a late swing toward a career in academic. The FPM (Industry) programme is a big draw in that direction.
“During my stints as an Asst. Professor at Kumaun University, Nainital, and IMS Dehradun, I realized that if I want to make professionally more meaningful and academically stimulating contributions, I need to undergo a suitably rigorous training programme,” recollects Prof. Krishna Chandra Balodi, who teaches Strategic Management at IIM-Lucknow. While pursuing his FPM from IIM Indore, Prof. Balodi was awarded Commonwealth Split-site Scholarship by Commonwealth Scholarship Commission, UK. It enabled him to study 1 year of his FPM at Cambridge Judge Business School, UK, where he undertook several doctoral courses along with their PhD students, attended research seminars, Judge's winter doctoral conference, and conducted joint research with his UK supervisor. “In UK, it is possible for students of one university to attend doctoral courses at another university, if the programme is supported by Economic and Social Research Council. This enabled me to visit London Business School as Intercollegiate visiting PhD student and undertake a doctoral level course.”
Other well-heeled B-schools have also taken this page out of the IIM story. The B-school saga in India has now hit a phase of consolidation. And if history is something to go by, intellectual infrastructure will be as crucial to sustenance, as will brick-and-mortar.
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