#CareerConversation — Dr Vinita Sahay — Director IIM Bodh Gaya

#CareerConversation — Dr Vinita Sahay — Director IIM Bodh Gaya

She candidly speaks about her formative years in Kanpur, pursuit of Economics and MBA in Marketing, how Marketing in the classroom has evolved over the years as she taught across a broad spectrum of B-schools, experience of teaching in Denmark, being the second women Director in India of an IIM , the near startup like experience of managing IIM Bodh Gaya, media created hype around MBA placements, her mantra for fitness, mindfulness and rejuvenation and advice to youngsters

Q1. Could you tell us about your formative years in Kanpur, your family, and your value system?

Ans: A lot of people ask me where do I come from and where do I belong and I think my formative years gave me an identity which was Indian because I was a daughter of a defense production officer, so we were posted all over the country so I could never relate myself as North Indian or Bihari or so on. Very early in my life I became Indian, for which I am very thankful to my father’s profession of defense. Frequent transfers gave me very good formative years because I think in these years you develop adaptability, resilience and basic interpersonal skills. Every 2 years we would get to a new city, a new home and luckily Kanpur had 5 ordnance factories so a very sizable portion of my school time I spent in Kanpur, which used to be known as Manchester of India, one of the most heavily industrialized town of the country. I am a Kendra Vidyalaya product, very proud of it because all my teachers were Ph.D. and they had a huge contribution in what I have become. Individual attention, small classroom, good teacher-student ratio I something which we were very privileged to enjoy.

I was the youngest among the three so a lot of resilience you develop based on that. I recollect my father calling me a fighter from very beginning. So it has been a great childhood and great foundation that my parents were able to give, a typical middle class officer, professional family where education is always on a very high platform.

Q2. In terms of academic choice, a lot of youngsters have different notions about different courses, so you did an MA in Economics with a gold medal then followed it with Ph.D. and PG Diploma in Marketing, so what really went on behind this choice? Did it just happen?

Ans: Yes, it just happened. I was always very young in my class. I think I finished my class 10 by the time I turned 15 and, in our times, “what do you want to do in life” was not big a question. I feel the current generation to be far less fortunate because they start facing this question very early in life. I would like to tell the youngsters that it’s pretty okay if you are not sorted in your teens, it’s little cruel in India that we don’t allow our children to experiment. In our times, we did not have a lot of psychometric profiling available, there weren’t too many aptitude tests available where people could guide us in what we are made to do and so we did our best at what was available at that moment in time and we figured it out by hit and trial, but I think over years we have become very demanding on our children where we pressurize them to get sorted. I think a lot of students have taken commerce because they weren’t made for science and in India humanities is still considered as not a cool thing to do. Management education is like starting afresh, because you have all kinds of discipline, HR, IT, operations, marketing, finance and each requires a very different level of intelligence. In the first year of MBA, we expose the students to all kinds of disciplines so that allows them to have a feel of all the subjects and then they have the freedom to choose what they wish to specialize in, which is really beautiful. MBA in that way is a very open kind of a course, specially the 2-year MBA. I think you must enjoy as long as you are in graduation and I think sky is the limit.

Q3. How has Marketing in class evolved over the years?

Ans: Marketing has changed a lot though in Indian context if you have not read Kotler, you don’t feel like you have done an MBA so Kotler still remains to be the Bible, but then the consumer has changed, the way we communicate and the use of media has changed, so naturally any discipline would evolve. If I wanted to reach out to 16-year old today, I won’t find them in any other medium other than the internet, which is why digital marketing has become so big. Of course I think COVID has made the world very digital friendly overnight and this would change the way people would interact with technology and this for sure is not a short haul. Other day I was discussing with the founder of Nykaa, whether in this lockdown the sale of cosmetics has gone down now that people are not going out. Very beautiful insights came into discussion that even though people are at home somehow cosmetics is still a low value luxury indulgence. So if people cannot go for European holidays or cruises, at least you feel good about painting your nails or coloring your hair sitting at home. She was mentioning that there are some product categories where the sales have gone through the roof, like hair colour and nail paints. Interestingly, when I was reading another report, I found that when the market opened up in Wuhan in China, people had thrown the cosmetic stores. So in both ways behaviours are changing and people may bounce back to the pre-COVID times. I see huge upsurge in E-commerce, huge upsurge in affiliate marketing and influential waves marketing tactics and strategies, so right now, YouTubers and influencers are taking up the biggest budgets in any marketing company. Over the years, things have changed but having said it, the philosophy still remains the same. It is still about finding the needs of the consumers and servicing them equally. It’s still about communicating, but yes, the methods may have changed over time.

Q4. Are the students abroad different from the Indian students in terms of their quest for marketing knowledge, the case study method, etc.?

Ans: When I taught in a different culture, it was a huge learning for me as a teacher. If I list down the learnings from my Denmark experience, they are immense. We were using blackboards and online exams even a decade earlier so even 10 years ago all my exams were digital. This thing that is happening in India right now is not new. Denmark is one of the happiest countries in the world. So visiting that country for 9 years has been a huge eye opener. I actually started noticing why people remain happy and what is the crux of it. Denmark also has one of the highest taxations in the world and still people very happily give it, so I learnt very basic feeling and understanding of patriotism from them. I often tell my PGP class that all my jokes will be in Hindi because I learnt the importance of your own language and culture. For me, the very simple definition of corruption is when you put self before the nation. So if those countries do not even know what corruption is then they don’t even know what’s the meaning of bribe, and they would still be very happy paying 56% of the taxes. I think one of the biggest take homes has been my own love for my own country has grown 10 times and I think I am able to spread this feeling to my youngsters as well.

In terms of delivering in the class, yes, the students are much more mature because unlike in India where 100% of the tuition fees is paid by the family of the student, therein very few people reach the Masters level and Ph.D. is very far and few. If they have reached the Masters level, then they are very very serious about it, and each one of them would at least have a job while attending the class. That was quite a different experience from having captive Indian residential students to having students who are multi-tasking and yet it was so good, and of course, they always call you by your first name.

Q5. In January 2018, you became the second woman director in the history of IIMs, and the first director of IIM Bodh Gaya. How was that experience for you?

Ans: How IIMs get started is they have one director and then there is a bunch of bright students and nothing in between. On top of it, every stakeholder expectation is sky high, so everybody who comes in thinks it’s IIM and it should be world class. It was in terms of journey, quite difficult as till the fourth year of the journey, I was the lone employer, so yes it was kind of startup, only difference is that we had the grace of having a sky-high expectation from every stakeholder. The biggest motivation or inspiration was the brand itself.

I do recollect back in 1985, it was still West Germany or East Germany or in the streets of Paris, Indians were looked down upon, but today when we go abroad or to a developed world, they always respect us. This journey from “brown Asian” to “bright Indian professor” was because of the contribution of 2 major brands — IIM and IIT. All said and done, India has created two very strong brands and to be a part of that legacy, itself is one of the biggest motivations.

Q6. In terms of management education, the media kind of paints B-schools as a placement factory. What are your views on that?

Ans: I think everybody has their own share of blame as to why we landed equating B-school with placement agencies, I think it is a reality. The whole learning comes first or job comes first has become a chicken and egg story, people don’t know what comes first. In India, CAT is not selection, CAT is more of an elimination, so if a student has made it, it’s not just the student but the aspirations of the whole family, which is unhinging on him. I think only in the later year of their journey, they do recognize that IIMs is not just a cape in the job but also learning. A pass out of IIM would recognize the contribution of the professors made in their life. We have to be mindful about the aspirations of the youngsters, especially this year is going to be extremely challenging in terms of everybody. We are in this together so we need to figure getting out of it together. We all should create an ecosystem where we can slowly and beautifully shift the focus from then becoming job seeker to a job provider, and it’s not going to happen overnight. How do we ensure that while we are equipping them technically to start a venture, we emotionally make them more secure, how do we make them more enterprising is a challenge we need to develop which somehow in American schools they were able to develop, which is where I think people should come together and make it happen.

Q7. What is your formula for unwinding and rejuvenating yourself for the next day and your formula for fitness?

Ans: My biggest dream right now is to set a mindfulness centre in my campus, because we are in the land of enlightenment. There is something in the geography, it’s not by chance that three of the most contemplative religions have emanated from this geography. Currently I am not much able to do with regards to the centre but I look forward to some team members, some like-minded people who can help me transverse this journey but I see huge potential in it, it’s a need which we are in the right space to deliver. I love what Abdul Kalam had said, “Dreams are something which do not allow you to sleep”, so I think that’s what keeps me going.

Q8 What is your final advice to someone who will come across this interview?

Ans: Be true to yourself; figure it out who you are and what your main talent is, what your main potential is and then just use it for your higher goodness. Name, fame, money, big house, big car, everything else is a by-product, so that’s what I think.

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