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Seasoned entrepreneur couple B V Jagadeesh and Anuradha Jagadeesh’s philanthropic support recognised with new Professorship Chair announced by School

The early years of any journey are always tumultuous. Be it of a toddler’s, a new business’, or an institutional journey. It is at this time, when one feels grateful, in the knowledge that they have a strong support to hold on to and continue onwards.

The Indian School of Business, similarly, back in its early days found a pair of delightful parents as patrons in Anuradha Jagadeesh and B V Jagadeesh. The entrepreneur-philanthropist couple believed in the vision of the School’s founders to create a research-led world class management institution, right here on Indian soil.

The story of how the couple got involved with Indian School of Business is also an interesting one. The philanthropist couple were already engaged in supporting many social causes in India – with most of them being in the field of education, ranging from primary education to engineering colleges.

The year was 2000, and the by-then immensely successful Indian business couple were well known in the US business community. They received an invitation to visit Stanford University for a presentation about setting up of a new business school in India, by leading names from McKinsey & Co, who were among the original founders of the School. The distinguished partnerships that the upcoming Indian School of Business had already forged at the time with Wharton School and Kellogg School of Management, impressed them.

“We thought that a School like this can accommodate a lot of new ideas and then bring out the next generation of leaders, who can provide jobs to hundreds and thousands of engineers coming out of colleges. So, you need that management skill and knowledge. That gap is what we saw, and which led to us getting involved with the Indian School of Business,” said B V Jagadeesh.

Anuradha Jagadeesh agrees on the couple’s motivation: “We felt the need for trained leaders from a premier world class management leadership school producing global leaders. It was with this thought that we supported the School.”

And has ISB lived up to their expectations? More than 20 years later, they speak as satisfied parents, pleased with their ward’s journey, and renewing their expectations for the future. For B V Jagadeesh, the satisfaction is heart-warming when in his normal course of business, he meets an ISB graduate and hears them being thankful to the School for their education, training in leadership skills, the personalities they were exposed to, and for all the opportunities provided during their time at ISB.

Now, they have set their eyes on the next phase of leadership growth for the School, as it steps into its third decade. “The world has changed. There is lot more data that is generated and technology to analyse it. So, I think preparing the future leaders to understand this modern technology is very important,” said Anuradha Jagadeesh, explaining the couple’s vision for this Professorship Chair.

“Secondly, today everyone has a business, and they want to know better ways of doing business. We want our businesses to scale digitally, so how can you scale digital leadership across the country and the globe? Reskilling existing management talent is also a big opportunity out there,” she added.

They both agreed that their vision is to see more businesses priding themselves on building new technologies first, and as service providers thereafter. Creating some companies with deep science and technology ingrained in them, is the larger part of their vision for the School.

Announcing the Anuradha Jagadeesh and B V Jagadeesh Chair Professorship, Dean Madan Pillutla expressed his gratitude for the couple’s contributions to supporting the School. “I would like to thank Mr B V Jagadeesh and Mrs Anuradha Jagadeesh for their generosity towards the Indian School of Business. Philanthropic support and contribution of well-wishers like them set the strong foundations that enabled ISB to grow as a world class institution, where cutting edge research and education combine to produce some of the finest thought leaders from the country.”