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Two IIM A MBAs Take An Altruistic Path one year mba pgpx entrepreneurship students ventures executive mba
Two IIM A MBAs Take An Altruistic Path
0As their classmates at Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM A) jostle for jobs, Anurag Singal and Chaitra Chandrasekhar have decided to give the fat salaries a miss to contribute to society.
These students of IIM A’s postgraduate programme in management for executives (PGPX) have started ventures aimed at helping others. While Anurag started India’s first recruitment website exclusively for Chartered Accountants (CA), Chaitra will help promote village tourism by helping urban Indians experience the village lifestyle.
It was the alarming number of farmer suicides that led Chaitra to think of village tourism. Her venture will help villagers-who have quit farming and become daily wagers-earn extra money, by hosting corporates during visits to the villages.
“During my initial days at IIM A, I wanted to continue in the IT industry but five months ago, when I was working with an NGO in a village, I realized there is huge potential for promoting village tourism to corporates.
My plan is to engage corporate customers on day trips to villages as part of their team building, where they get an opportunity to learn pottery, weaving, woodwork and other frugal ways to solve problems,” said Chaitra, who has worked with IBM in the US and India for over eight years before pursuing the MBA at IIM A. “Money has never driven me. I took the safe option of working due to family pressure,” said Chaitra.
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For Anurag, the idea of a CA job portal came when he saw there were not enough takers for young professionals from tier II and III cities who had cleared their CA exams.
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“The market just wanted Tier I CAs, who had done training from reputed firms and it was demoralizing for those who couldn’t land jobs even after five years of industrial training.
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My website is an effort to restore the credibility of the profession,” said Anurag. whose primary inspiration was his student who was turned away by the security guard of a high-profile recruitment firm in August 2013.
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Anurag has roped in IIM grads, CAs and IIM professors as management and advisory members for his venture. Besides freshers, the website aims at getting jobs for retired CAs, freelancers and women who are looking at flexible timings or to work from home. (Article courtesy The Times of India, Image courtesy executivesearch.com)