A high profile convocation ceremony

Our Corporate Bureau
29 March 2004

Hyderabad: Anil Ambani, vice chairman and managing director, Reliance Industries (RIL), while addressing the convocation ceremony of the Indian School of Business (ISB) here said, "Successive generations will have to change their career planning with growing longevity of employees."

The convocation ceremony at ISB, was attended by Dr Vijay Mahajan, Dean of ISB, and prominent corporate personalities such as Rajat Gupta, co-partner of McKinsey Corp, Dipak Jain, Dean of Kellogg Business School, Jagmohan S Raju of the Wharton Business School and Anil Ambani CMD RPL as the chief guest.

Ambani began his talk in a lighter vein saying, "I reverse the instructions given to you at the beginning of the programme. Switch on your mobiles... I also have a job to take care of." However, his talk progressed to more serious issues such as increasing the longevity of people at the work place.

He said longevity was increasing in India and all over the world and more and more people were able to contribute fruitfully to their workplace till the ages of 75 to 80. With increasing healthcare services, very soon managers would have to reorient their career plans. The concepts of retirement at the age of 55 to 58 would change.

He went on to say that India was well on its way to becoming an economic superpower and said the country needed more young people to lead. He said India is passing through exciting times and an era of intellectual capital wherein the youth have a very significant and leading role to play. Quoting his father, the late Dhirubhai Ambani, Anil Ambani said that his father used to define a leader as a person who could attract followers.

On another note, he lamented the fact that very few women seemed interested in joining business schools. He noted that of the students enrolled at ISB only 17 per cent were women, while at the Harvard Business School in the US more than 35 per cent of the alumni comprised women.

Rajat Gupta, senior partner at McKinsey & Co and chairman of ISB, who opened the convocation proceedings, said that the ISB would not have come into being without Anil Ambani's initiatives. He told the students, "It is you who have to turn the institute into a brand."