Full Text of Rajat Gupta’s Speech

Honourable Prime Minister of India, Dr Manmohan Singh; his Excellency Rameshwar Thakur, Governor of Andhra Pradesh; Honourable Chief Minister Dr Rajasekhara Reddy; Mr Munjal; Dean Rao, dignitaries, members of the media, delegates, faculty, staff and students of the ISB, welcome and thank you for being with us today.

This is a momentous occasion for us. We are celebrating two events here – the completion of 5 eventful, successful years of the ISB, and the inauguration of the First Global Logistics Summit. Both the events are especially memorable and historic because we have with us today, the Prime Minister to bless this occasion.

When I look at the ISB today, I feel a strange mix of pride and humility. Pride, because I was privileged to play a part in creating it, and because it truly is the fulfilment of a dream. Today an institution like ISB belongs in India, and easily fits the aspirations and achievements of the country. Ten years ago the founders had to take a great leap of faith and had to have the confidence in the future. Humility, because I am grateful to everyone who has contributed to building this institution – the group of founders who had the courage to pursue a dream, the project team that executed the idea in record time, the world renowned schools who backed the institution, the people who made generous donations and provided the funds to make the school possible, the architectural team that designed and created this unique campus, the government for supporting us all the way, students of the inaugural class who put their careers at stake and braved the uncertainties inherent in a new school, the faculty who came from all over the world to teach here, companies that came to recruit our students, the school’s leadership who put in a superhuman effort to make it all possible – and also humility because in many ways, the journey has just begun.

Way back in 1995, when the idea of this School was conceived, the ISB was just a dream. While the dream was, at one level, a personal pursuit of excellence for all of us, it was, nevertheless, rooted in reality – on hard data that demonstrated the need for such a school – and the innate confidence in the country’s future.

When the ISB was launched in 2001, we faced a lot of scepticism. We were breaking new ground on almost all fronts. The one year programme, the unique faculty model, the participation of three top business schools who had never before come together to support a new school, the students requiring work experience, lateral placements, the emphasis on research and a lot more. Today, I am happy to say that in hindsight we have been proved to be wise pioneers. The School is growing at a rapid pace. We started with 128 students the first year, today we are at 418, and soon, we plan to be 560 students, making it the fifth largest school in the world. We have 20 resident faculty, and plan to increase that by 5 every year. We have a large number of international faculty, some hundred plus this year, with some of the best business schools in the world teaching at the ISB. Collectively, the global faculty that the students are exposed to is unmatched anywhere in the world. The Centre for Executive Education has also been growing by leaps and bounds, and today, we are the largest in Asia. Our students have been doing very well in the companies they have joined; I meet them everywhere I go, in Brussels, in London, in New York, in Mumbai and in Hyderabad. For McKinsey, where I come from, ISB is the largest source of young talent among all the schools in India.

We have committed ourselves to international quality research right from the start. To help achieve that, we have planned to have 5 Centres of Excellence. The Centre for Entrepreneurship Development was the first to be started. Soon, the Centre for Analytical Finance came into being. Before long, we added another one to our repertory – the Centre for Global Logistics and Manufacturing Strategies. This Centre is conducting the Summit today, and Professor Viswanadham here, heads the Centre. We have, recently, launched the Centre for IT and Networked Economies. We will soon be launching the Centres of Leadership and Change Management, and one for Strategic Marketing. So, we are now planning 6 Centres, and I hope many more to come, as time goes on.

Today, I am very pleased to announce the setting up of the “Thomas Schmidheiny Chair of Family Business and Wealth Management”. I acknowledge and thank Dr Thomas Schmidheiny for his gesture, and also thank him for being here today on this important occasion at the ISB.

Conferences such as the Global Logistics Summit are examples of the kind of work and research that goes on at the ISB. In fact, we have the research conference on Entrepreneurship going on just today, where researches from all over the world have congregated to share the latest findings in this area. At this Summit, we have both industry and academia sharing real life business experiences and learning through research. One of the highlights of this Summit is the emphasis on Rural Supply Chain and Logistics. Professor Viswanadham and his team have been working a great deal in this area. We are proud to present to the Prime Minister a set of Research papers brought out by the Centre for Global Logistics and Manufacturing Strategies, GLAMS, in short. These papers examine the opportunities that Rural India presents, and offers some solutions to transform rural business. ‘Kisan Bandhu’ is one of the plans discussed; it presents a methodology for using mobile technologies and IT enabled services to make rural marketing farmer friendly and rural retailing a reality.

It is a great honour and privilege to present this Research material to the Prime Minister. I hope that the ISB will contribute to your efforts at transforming rural India. I take great pleasure, Sir, in presenting the Research papers entitled ‘Achieving Rural & Global Supply Chain Excellence – the Indian Way’. This book is a collection of Thought Leadership papers by researchers from the Centre for Logistics and Manufacturing at the ISB.

Thank you very much sir.

Let me close by quoting the Bhagwad Gita:

“Jnanam jneyam parijnata tri-vidha karma-codana.”

“Knowledge, the object of knowledge, and the knower are the three factors that combine to motivate action”. This is what ISB is all about.

The ISB combines the wisdom of the ages with the spirit of Modern India. We are entrepreneurial, hard working, and committed to our goal. We are committed to taking India forward to newer levels of achievement - to explore new ideas, to better the best, to carve a new way. We have many challenges ahead, no doubt, but the road is exciting, and it has just begun. I promise you, Honourable Prime Minister, we at the ISB will remain steadfast to our commitments, and will walk with you on this exciting new path for creating Modern India.


Thank You.