Careers in Media and Entertainment - Session by Ajit Thakur

It was a homecoming of sorts for Ajit Thakur as he reminisced about his life to a jam-packed room of enthusiastic IIM Lucknow students at his alma mater- Indian Institute of Management Lucknow. His talk primarily concentrated on different career opportunities in media sector. Mr Thakur took excerpts from his own career to educate the students on likely path to be adopted should they dream of a career in media, and surely there were many dreamers.

Mr Thakur is the current business head of Sony Television responsible for a whole gamut of media business activities inclusive of programme creation, content research and commercial handling. His tenure in Sony was preceded by very successful stints at Balaji Motion Pictures and UTV Motion Picture. Prior to venturing into Media sector Mr Thakur gained considerable marketing and sales experience handling key brands such as Coca Cola and Unilever , which in his words “equipped him to tackle the rigours of any  kinds of marketing job”. Mr Thakur’s experience across different sectors helped the students get a holistic picture of “Marketing and Sales”, as he narrated his life’s journey from IIM to his present vocation.

The session gave students a flavour of various media sectors and the different growth potential present across them. Upon asking his preference for a sector Mr Thakur quipped “Movie making is much more innovative and creatively satisfying but it is television where you hone your business skills”. He expressed his enthusiasm about the new media segment saying that the advent of new technology will revolutionize the entertainment sector by expanding its reach like never before. Mr Thakur was optimistic about radio industry and urged students to work in this niche sector by saying "It (working in radio sector) is one of the fastest ways to become a General Manager”.


The talk was organised as a part of Colloquy – The Talk Series by the Industry Interaction Cell IIM Lucknow. This talk was in continuation of Industry Interaction cell’s endeavours to expose students to a variety of exciting job opportunities through interaction with the best in the global industry. Some of the big names who’ve been associated with the talk series are Mr Tarun Tripathi (Former Marketing Head Yash Raj Films), Ms Latika Khaneja (Collage sports management) and Mr R Balakrishnan aka R Balki of Cheeni Kum and Paa fame. The session was received very cordially by the students who had a good time talking to a fellow alumnus and a marketing mogul in all rights.

SPORTS & CELEBRITY MANAGEMENT – TALK AT IIM LUCKNOW!

Miss. Khaneja

To give the students a sneak-peak into the field of Sports and Celebrity Management, the Industry Interaction Cell (iic) of IIM Lucknow organized a session by Miss. Latika Khaneja, founder and director of Collage Sports Management. Miss Khaneja talked about her “virgin attempt at sports marketing” which was basically her effort towards helping budding cricketers establish their foothold in the cricketing world. What started off as a simple non-profit cricketing club has now diversified into one of the largest sports management company in India.

Among her illustrious clientele are Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir, Ishant Sharma and Abhinav Bindra, besides a whole gamut of others. The highlight of the session was the story of Virender Sehwag, of how the company leveraged his boy next door image to transform him into one of the biggest brands of India. Miss Khaneja deliberated on the difference between sports marketing and sports sponsorship. She mentioned that while sports sponsorship is more about garnering financial support for the players, sports marketing is a different genre of activity that comprises a win-win situation for both the player and the company.  Mentioning about the new avenues of sports management she also shared her thoughts about Team Tennis - a new project by Collage towards professional training in tennis.

The session received rave reviews from the student community. Mukund a second year student had to say “The session was quite informative. It would definitely motivate the students to consider such offbeat career options in the future”. The talk session was hosted as a part of Colloquy – The talk series by the Industry Interaction Cell of IIM Lucknow. IIM Lucknow is slated to host some of the biggest names in Sports and Bollywood this year to give its students exposure to new career paths. The elite Management school believes in strong industry exposure to complement the curriculum, and with the curriculum being made highly contemporary, the Industry Interaction Cell is opening up channels across India’s twin loves – Bollywood and Cricket to make the course learning consummate.

Colloquy: The Leadership series 2009

The Colloquy leadership series organized by IIC invites thought leaders from various spheres to share their valuable knowledge and experiences with the budding managers of tomorrow. Some of the notable industry stalwarts who visited the campus in 2009 were:


Mr. Chetan Bulsari, Head (Finance), Barclays Wealth
This session was aimed at educating students on the real issues that led to the financial crisis in its present shape and what could be the potential strategies that could be employed by companies to better the situation. In a second session he helped the second year students, majoring in Finance, understand the nuances of Risk Management in a Bank & explained in detail the critical role played by the bank’s Treasury.


Mr.Anuratna, Global Marketing Manager, Citi Private Bank
Primarily focused at the first year students, this talk by Mr. Anuratna Chaddha centered around the credit crisis, its origins and the mechanism of its spread to all economies. Further, Mr. Chaddha shared deep insights highlighting the key steps that financial institutions such as Citi were taking to emerge from the crisis and start their progress towards growth. Drawing from his personal experiences, he also shared with the students his perspective on the prime challenges he encountered while working in diverse geographical locations such as South Africa & Sub Saharan Africa, which was a very important take-away for students.

Anirban Malakar, Business Head, Maxus Global
Mr. Malakar held an engaging talk on "Media Strategy and Media Schedules" for students of IIM Lucknow. He highlighted how advertising companies go about promotional strategies for corporates. He also shed light on the importance of 360 degree campaigns by companies involving various technology components to create bigger impact and increase reach to the consumers. Mr. Malakar talked about how one should go about placing advertisements and campaigns in different media like print, TV, magazines etc. The session was a great learning experience for the students who gained useful insights into the media strategy domain.


Mr. Bijoy Daga, Head Invest Banking group
Mr. Bijoy Daga, a CA with over 14 years of experience in Relationship Management, Asset & Structured Finance, Advisory Services and Project Finance and currently heading the Investment Banking group at IL&FS Financial Services Limited, took a session on Project Finance. This highly-engaging session primarily dealt with examples of live deals in tune with the current market trends in the International and Indian arena.

Public - Private Partnership, Project financing in realty sector by Mr. Anirban Chakraborti from Punj Lloyd

In keeping with its legacy of inviting guest lecturers from diverse industries, IIM Lucknow organized the first talk of its kind, on “Project Financing in Realty Sector” by the Guest Speaker, Mr. Anirban Chakraborti, Project Controller, Punj-Lloyd - the 2nd largest EPC (Engineering, Procurement and Construction) player in the country.

Mr. Anirban Chakraborti, alumni of the Indian School of Business (ISB), Hyderabad ‐ Class of 2007, has also worked with E&Y Business Advisory Services as a financial consultant.

Mr. Chakraborti elaborated on the key issues and challenges involved in the financing and procurement for these large scale infrastructure projects. He also highlighted the complexity of executing such projects especially with regard to personnel safety on projects undertaken in politically unstable countries, which constitutes a significant portion of the new infrastructure projects in the world.

He evoked greater interest by examining a few recent most examples of important projects such as DIAL, HAIL, Delhi Gurgaon Expressway, Vizhinjam Sea Port, some of which have been the topic of much controversy of late.

Going by the interest expressed by the students, Mr. Chakraborti discussed in depth the two main models in EPC projects, namely the Public Private Partnership (PPP) model and the Public Social Private Partnership (PSPP) model. Discussion brought out the need to ensure competition and avoid a private monopoly.

The talk, highly interactive in nature, saw a good participation by the students with keen insights shared by Mr. Chakraborti.

A talk on 'Demand & Funding of Mortgages and the latest trends in consumer finance' by Mr.Sujan Sinha (Sr VP and Head of retail assets, Axis Bank)

Mr. Sujan Sinha, Senior Vice President and Head of retail assets at Axis Bank, delivered a guest lecture at IIM lucknow on ‘Latest trends in consumer finance and mechanics of demand and funding in mortgages’. Sharing his assessment of the current crisis in India, he opined that the current crisis is not a home grown crisis and is difficult to project what problems are still to come in the American economy. But, showing the faith in Indian consumer, he felt that this crisis will first see the revival of consumer spending and then the revival of corporate India. He believed it was fortunate that the policy norms kept the exposure of Indian banks limited. Thus, the current crisis is more of a result of lack of faith in the financial system than any underlying losses.

Due to this crisis realty sector is badly hit. Due to crunch of liquidity, the small builders are forced to sell properties at a lower prices, this is pushing prices in the real estate market southwards. Now this unexpected drop in prices is influencing buyer to get into a wait and watch mode expecting a further price drop. Thus, the sales of real estate are dropping further trapping the industry into the vicious demand cycle. This is also affecting the supply side of real estate and builders are stuck with semi finished projects for which they are not able to arrange finances. But, the aggressive moves by RBI to help liquidity in the market would bring back the sanity in the market. Also cut in crucial rates by RBI will also ensure a correction in time deposits that are at an all time high to come down to single digit interest rates.

He concluded the discussion on a positive note praising past IIM Lucknow recruits for being aware of ground realities and long term thinking. The session was very well received by the students and was punctuated with regular questions.