I belonged to the first batch on IMNU,
when it was known as NIM. From the
day of joining NIM to being here, the
journey has been quite amazing. I have
seen the transition on NIM from sitting
on school like benches in the 1st year
and then to an ultra modern class room
in second year. I was always late for
class and was constantly reprimanded
for the same. I still remember few of the
professors words, which I can relate to
in my corporate life-“Price is a
brahmastra”- Nirmal Gupta Sir, “Learn
business from streets: – Ram Kumar
Sir, Crisp insights by PK Sinha Sir,
casual meeting with O K Gupta Sir…the
list is endless. At the inception of NIM we didn’t have
much of sports as IMNU has today, but,
personally I have always been
associated with sports, compeering
events, reading, graphic designing –
few of which I have kept alive. I don’t
miss anything about Nirma, because
those are wonderful memories of
wonderful times, alive even after all
these years.
My transition from being a B-school
student to being a corporate, I would
compare it with this quote “One who
must fly one day must first learn to
stand and walk” – standing, walking and
flying have many things in common, yet
many different. B-School life helped
greatly in my journey through corporate
life. The theory and concepts I learnt at
school had direct application to the
world of business – of course with a lot
of common sense. The current
education system does not allow one to
seamlessly move from academics to
job/profession. But that’s not for one to
blame.
The major motivating factor for me to
enter this line of work came in the
couple of years after completing MBA.
It was by chance, that I was doing
things with friends in a domain that I
understood had great potential and was
fun. The main motivating factor was we were making a difference to
everything around – life of people,
society, nation and we could see that
happening in front of our eyes and that’s
quite motivating. NIM had set the tone
for business within me.
Be it professors, culture, education,
friends, summer internship at
Forbes…everything. In fact I met my
partner Tinu (Xplora Design Skool) at
NIM, where we were class mates. I
believe, I had traits of
entrepreneurship since childhood.
My father is a textile technologist who
was the first in family to get into
business. There are some things I
picked up from him, but I did not get
into his business.
In my journey, I have seen a lot of
business setbacks and a lot of success.
Hard work, grace of God, regular
interaction with my professors,
constant innovation & differentiation
both disruptive and value addition, and,
desire to excel have made me what I
am today. If I were to sum up it was my
“Academic bent of mind with
passionate hard work.”
I have consulted, taught, and wrote
cases at NID, MICA & IIM A; received
Shiksha Bharti Puraskar 2009; “Indian
Leadership Award for Educational
Excellence 2010”.
Currently I am the Chairman: Innovation & Research Foundation: Design & Innovation consulting, programs & workshops for Corporate & Colleges. I am also a partner of Xplora Design Skool- “India’s premier vocational multimedia & animation education company spread across 125+ campuses in 22 states of India. And it gives me great happiness to say we have trained and placed over 60000+ students in the last 14 years approximately.
On a parting note all I would like to tell the budding managers is, “There is nothing like hard work, follow your heart. Innovate. Work is not only the turn-over; the turn-over can be ordered and brought about by sheer labour.”
Authored by Mr. Rohit Swarup, Director at Xplora Design Skool | Batch: 1996-1998