51st Annual Convocation of XLRI

The 51st Convocation of XLRI Jamshedpur was held on March 31st, 2007 and 230 of the countries most brilliant minds received their diplomas in a glittering ceremony at the JRD Tata Auditorium. Mr. R. Gopalakrishnan, Executive Director, Tata Sons Limited was the Chief Guest on the occasion. In addition to the convocation ceremony, the prestigious Sir Jehangir Ghandy Medal for Industrial and Social Peace was awarded to Mr KV Kamath, MD and CEO of ICICI Bank. Mr Muthuraman, MD Of Tata Steel Limited and Chairman of the Board of Governors of XLRI delivered the Presidential Address.

Out of the 230 students graduating, 65 are from the Personnel Management and Industrial Relations Programme, 116 from the Business Management Programme, 44 from the executive Post Graduate Programme, out of which 2 students were awarded the prestigious title of Fellow of XLRI; and 3 were awarded the Fellowship in Human Resource Development by XLRI in association with the Academy of Human Resource Development, Ahmedabad.

Mr R Gopalakrishnan is a physics graduate from Calcutta University and holds a degree in engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur. Other than being Executive Director of Tata Sons, he is also the vice-chairman of Tata Chemicals, the director of several Tata Group companies such as Tata Motors, Tata Power and Tata Internet Services, and serves on the board of two non-Tata companies: ICI and Castrol India.

Mr K V Kamath is the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of ICICI Bank. He is widely credited for making ICICI a financial powerhouse with global ambitions. Mr. Kamath has a degree in mechanical engineering and a master’s degree in business administration from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. Mr. Kamath was named CNBC-TV18's “Outstanding Business Leader of the Year” in 2006, Business India's “Businessman of the Year” in 2005 and CNBC’s “Asian Business Leader of the Year” in 2001.

The Sir Jehangir Ghandy Medal was instituted by XLRI in 1966. Previous recipients of the Medal include illustrious names from diverse fields such as J R D Tata, Arvind Mafatlal, Holck-Larsen, Rajmohan Gandhi, V R Krishna Iyer, S Moolgaonkar, P N Bhagwati, V Kurien, Keshub Mahindra, P A Sangma, Jyoti Basu, N A Palkhivala, J N Godrej, Brijmohan Lall Munjal and M S Banga.

Party on 31st :: No party on 31st

Hello everyone,

The XL - IIMC post match party will now be on April 7; PLEASE send in confirmations to Murali.

We're not doing it on the 31st because:

a. Very few of the XL cricketers have confirmed attendance
b. Fewer folks from IIMC have done so
c. It is the last day of the year
d. It is a bandh in TN on the 31st
e. It is the XL convo and we're all going there
e. All of the above
f. None of the above

Take your pick. But be there on the 7th. Where? Murali will let us know!!

Cheers,
Shantaram

Industry laps up XLRI GMP batch

Industry laps up XLRI GMP batch

STATE BUREAU

Posted online: Monday, March 26, 2007 at 0216 hours IST

JAMSHEDPUR, MAR 25 : On-campus placements for the recently concluded XLRI general management programme (GMP) 2007 were witness to plum packages like an international offer of $1,00,000 made by an IT sector company. The highest domestic offer being a whopping Rs 35 lakh made by an RPG Group company, while the average annual salary of the batch worked out to Rs 15 lakh.

Jobs on offer were senior-level roles like head strategy, DGM finance, projects, and advisor investment banking, etc. Around 26 companies made 106 job offers to the 49 GMP students.

It was the first formal placement for GMP, a one-year course for managerial candidates with more than 3 years' industry experience, since its inception in 1997.

The information technology (IT & ITeS) sector lapped up 35% of the students, financial sector 30%, manufacturing 15%, telecom 10%, with the balance 10% picked up by consulting firms.

Companies like the ADAG Group, Atos Origin, Cognizant, Feedback Ventures, Godrej Consumer, ICICI, ICRA Management Consulting, Jindal Steel & Power, L&T, Mindtree Consulting, RPG Group, SBI Caps, Tech Mahindra, Tata Motors, among others, were the recruiters.

According to Fr N Casamir Raj, director, XLRI: "People coming to the course are with a minimum of five years' experience and the industry response towards recent GMP batches has been very good even at IIM Ahmedabad and the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad."

Encouraged by the response, the B-school has planned to raise the eligibility criteria for the programme from the minimum three years' experience at present to five years', from next year.

It would also, from 2008, accept GMAT candidates above a certain score, apart from selecting candidates through its own XAT. The number of seats too is going to go up marginally from 55 to 60.

XL's 1-Year full-timeMBA (aka GMP) Placements - FINAL Instalment

concluded last week in Mumbai at Hyatt (slot-free, open, flexible, rolling process)

49 students

26 companies

106 offers

Ave Salary: 15lacs

Highest Doemstic Salary: 35lacs

2 international placements

Highest internationalSalary: 100,000USD

Roles offered were like: Head-Stategy, DGM-Finance, Advisor-Investment Banking, DGM-Projects, etc....

Companies from diverse sectors like Investment banks, FMCG, Telecom, Banking, Management Consulting, Manufacturing, IT and ITES.

Firms such as ADAG Group, Atos origin, Cognizant, Feedback Ventures, Godrej Consumer, ICICI, ICRA Management Consulting, JSPL, L&T, Mindtree Consulting, RPG group, SBI Caps, Tech Mahindra, Tata Motors etc. participated in the placement process.

XL Convocation on 31st March

The Convocation this year will be held on Saturday, March 31, 2007 at 5.30 pm at the Tata Auditorium.

Convocation Speaker : Mr R Gopalakrishnan

Executive Director

Tata Sons Limited

Sir Jehangir Ghandy Medal for

Industrial and Social Peace : Mr K V Kamath

Managing Director & CEO

ICICI Bank

Picnic for Sydneysiders on 25th March

Hi,

I apologise for being a lazy this time around. This time its Fagan Park on Sunday, 25th march at 1200 hrs. For those who have not been there before, its in Galston (near Dural).

Details can be found at

http://www.hornsby.nsw.gov.au/recreation/index.cfm?NavigationID=915

Lets enter from the Arcadia Road entrance (the Main entrance) which is closest to the 3 available electric BBQs and the playground area. Also near this are gardens of many nations.

Looking forward to catching up after a longish break.

Cheers,
Pankaj

Chennai : Meet Fr. Joe Arroyo on 17th at 7.30pm at ....

The get-together with Fr. Arroyo is fixed for Saturday 17th at 7.30pm. The venue will either be the Alumni Club near the Boat Club OR the Gymkhana; we will finalize this by Saturday morning.

Please be in touch with me at 93803-xxxxx or Nidhi Reddy at 98404-xxxxx.

RSVP would be much appreciated so that we can make suitable arrangements.

Shanks
IR 84

March 24,2007 - XL Canada Meet at Sarvanna Bhavan (Woodside Square) - 9 days to go

Hi,
This is just a friendly reminder to all that our meet is next Saturday Mar 24,
Thank all the confirmations so far and looking forward to meet the XlCanada Group.
Request those who have not confirmed to send an e-mail / leave voicemail at 416-623-7050 about their plans . Requesting a confirmation so that if you have transport issues we can co-ordinate with other Xlers.

Once again looking forward to seeing you there.

Regards,
Siddharth & Bala

XL Canada Moderator wrote:
Hi,
Hope the new year finds all of you in good spirits. We hope to try to start fresh this year from where we unfortunately broke off last year.
Given the suggestions and advice on postponing the meet, we decided to target March as the next possible meeting date, as it is not too close to our annual Summer Picinic and gave all of us time to enjoy the holiday season, the New year blues and to finally come back to our normal self!!!!

This time is is simple:
Venue : Sarvanna Bhavan, Woodside Square, Scarborough
Date : March 24,2007
Time : After 10:00 am
Status : Confirmed

We wanted it earlier in March but then given the March Break Holidays coudn't manage it earlier and hopefully the weather will also be more pleasant than what it is now!!!
Request you all to confirm your availability. In case there are issues about transport to and from Sarvanna Bhavan , please indicate and we will try to manage around that.
Awaiting your response,
Regards,
Siddharth & Bala

For those who do not know the address, it is :
Saravanaa Bhavan
At Woodside Square
Finch and McCowan Intersection.
1571 Sandhurst Circle, Unit 153
Scarborough, ON. M1V 1V2

T: 416 293 7755 F: 416 293 7715

Looking forward to seeing you on Saturday.
Regards,
Sid Thakur

XLRI bikers out to explore untouched destinations

XLRI bikers out to explore untouched destinations

Express News Service

Pune, March 14: From the virgin beaches of Kashid, to the former French colony at Mahe, the yet to be explored areas of ‘Incredible India’ will soon be unfurled by a group of students of the Xaviers Labour Relations Institute (XLRI). With an aim to boost tourism in India, a team of 14 students will embark on a unique bike expedition along the coast of West India from Pune to Kanyakumari, documenting along the way potential tourist destinations that have remained dormant. As part of the XLRI Leadership Expedition, which was flagged off on Wednesday, 14 students, accompanied by experienced biker Dilip Bam, a faculty member, and two others, will travel a stretch of nearly 2000 km, visiting about 20 locations over a period of 13 days from March 14-26.

“We intend to document information about all the potential tourist spots on the way that we find interesting, and which have not been discovered so far,” said XLRI student Naqi Abbas.

This information will include the name and location of the spot, special tourist attractions worth highlighting, government initiatives, and what needs to be done. “This will be compiled in the form of a report, which we will submit to the Union and State Tourism Ministries,” said Abbas. This can help create employment and boost the economy in the area through tourism, the students said.

The XLRI Leadership Expedition is an annual event carried out by the final year students at XLRI to improve skills like leadership, with emphasis on planning, logistics, decision making, group facilitation, and so on. Last year, an expedition was carried out to the Mount Everest base.

Party time on Saturday March 24th,2007-Mgt Schools Alumni

Dear folks,

It's party time for us too…..at the culmination of the Alumni Cricket Tournament as usually done every year so far, we shall be having a get together of all the Players from the IIM's and XL, besides the respective Alumni with their families this time around also.

This year's tournament saw only two teams playing XLRI and IIM-C who played each other twice so that the result was never in doubt to decide the winner.

IIM-A was for some reason absent from the games..Maybe the A in their name stands for ABSENT!!

Hopefully they shall turn up when the partying begins along with the rest of us.

The venue : Madras Cricket Club---Bells Road.
Date : Sat 24th March,2007
Time : 6.30 pm onwards.
Chief Guest : Mr.Balaji –India and Tamil Nadu State cricketer
Events : Prize Distribution to winning team and Best players awards, talks by the Chief Guest,etc

We'll need to know the numbers who shall be attending this bash where drinks and dinner shall be served and hence please confirm your participation by emailing either me or PNS.

Here's looking forward to seeing you and your families on the 24th of March, so please specially plan your traveling and work to be in town definitely that evening.

Regards,
Murali

Party time on Saturday March 24th,2007-Mgt Schools Alumni Cricket tournament

Dear folks,

It’s party time for us too…..at the culmination of the Alumni Cricket Tournament as usually done every year so far, we shall be having a get together of all the Players from the IIM’s and XL, besides the respective Alumni with their families this time around also.

This year’s tournament saw only two teams playing XLRI and IIM-C who played each other twice so that the result was never in doubt to decide the winner. IIM-A was for some reason absent from the games..Maybe the A in their name stands for ABSENT!!

Hopefully they shall turn up when the partying begins along with the rest of us.

The venue : Madras Cricket Club---Bells Road.
Date : Sat 24th March,2007
Time : 6.30 pm onwards.
Chief Guest : Mr.Balaji –India and Tamil Nadu State cricketer
Events : Prize Distribution to winning team and Best players awards, talks by the Chief Guest,etc

We’ll need to know the numbers who shall be attending this bash where drinks and dinner shall be served and hence please confirm your participation by emailing either me or PNS

Here’s looking forward to seeing you and your families on the 24th of March, so please specially plan your traveling and work to be in town definitely that evening.

Regards,
Murali

Fr. Joe Arroyo in Chennai on March 17th

Fr. Joe Arroyo (pop joe to most of us) will be in Chennai on March 17th and will leave on 19th morning to Bangalore. He arrives on 17th noon and will be staying at the Residency Towers in T'Nagar. He is visiting Chennai with his nephew and both of them will be "touring" Chennai and see the cultural highspots.

I am planning a dinner get together of those who know him; this will be on 17th evening. The venue is yet to be fixed. There will be a small subscription for dinner. I am thinking of Madras Race Club, but if others have better ideas, please let me know so that we can finalize.

Please keep your calendar free on March 17th evening and look out for details. If some of you want to accompany him on 18th, please let me know.

I will receive him at the airport on 17th and take him to the hotel. That afternoon he can do some shopping or visit local sights--local guides are welcome.
The next day (18th), a trip to Kapaleeswarar Temple, St.Thomas Mount, Santhome Church, Dakshina Chitra may be on the cards. If some of you want to drive him to these places, please let me know.
He leaves on 19th morning 10am to the airport for his Bangalore leg (19th to 22nd). So, if some of you want to drive him to the airport, that is also fine.

He will first arrive in Ahmedabad and then move to Jaipur, Delhi, Kolkatta, Chennai, Bangalore, Mumbai, Ahmedabad before flying out to Spain.

See you all then.

Sankaran
IR 84

************

***************************************************
Sankaran P. Raghunathan, PhD
Blueshift
US:

Leena Nair (92PMIR) to head HR at Hind Lever

MUMBAI (Economic Times, March 5, 2007):
Leena Nair, general manager – HR (HPC, foods and leadership supply), Hindustan Unilever (HUL), has been promoted as vice-president, HR.

Ms Nair will be the first woman manager in HUL’s history to rise to vice-president level. Ms Nair has been with HUL ever since she joined the company as a management trainee from XLRI Jamshedpur in 1992.

Expressing delight over her appointment, Ms Nair said, “I feel excited about such a great opportunity. HR is an important function in HUL, and we have been thought leaders in the industry in terms of policies and planning to attract the best talent. I hope to take this forward and continue the good work.”

XL's 1-Year full-timeMBA (aka GMP) Placements

quoting from some mails that I found in my mailbox when I returned this evening:

===================
Day 1:
"An update on Day 1 of GMP placement at Mumbai (that has just concluded). The cumulative offers are now 21. The average offer should be close to Rs.11 lakhs. The highest offer of Rs.18 lakhs was rejected because the student already had an offer with much lesser salary but a role better suited to his liking!...

Day 2:
"Just concluded Day 2 of GMP process at Mumbai. At end of Day 2 we have 34 offers to 31 students leaving 18 students without an offer (actually 52 offers using PGP Placement definition, but in GMP process we acknowledge an offer only after the student is satisfied with the offer made; rejected offers are not termed 'offers'! Sorry for the terminological confusion!)

...There has been one Dollar Offer of USD 100,000 (is this a record for XLRI? I don't know. Old-timers should be able to say). The highest Rupee offer is Rs. 18 lakhs (is this a record for XLRI? Again, I don't know!). The 34 offers do not include another 5-6 offers for which full details are not available. When these details come in, most probably the Rs.18 lakhs offer will be topped (there have been two offers of Deputy General Managers for which the offer details are awaited).
==============

I think there will be more to report as we go on;0)

ciao
madhukar

Yes Bank appoints Deodutta Kurane as President-Human Capital

http://news.moneycontrol.com/india/news/pressmarket/yesbankdeoduttarkurane/yesbkappointsde/market/stocks/article/269693

Yes Bk appoints Deodutta Kurane as President-Human Capital

2007-03-02 12:30:32 Source : Moneycontrol.com

YES BANK, India’s new age private sector Bank, today announced the appointment of Deodutta R Kurane as the President – Human Capital.

Deodutta in this top leadership position will be directly reporting to the Founder/Managing Director & CEO, Rana Kapoor and will be spearheading the Human Resources function. He will be responsible for implementing innovative HR practices that will identify and nurture talent, evaluate employee contribution and establish action plans for empowering employees across the organisation. His experience and expertise will enable YES BANK to relentlessly work towards its defined objective of becoming the most preferred employer in the Indian Financial Services sector. This reflects the Bank’s pursuit to build the World’s Best Quality Bank in India and create an institution of enduring trust and value.

Deodutta is a Gold Medalist in Industrial Relations and Welfare from the Xavier Labour Relations Institute (XLRI), Jamshedpur and brings with him over 25 years of work experience in diverse facets of HR. He has worked with leading organizations like Bajaj Allianz Life & General Insurance Company Ltd, Bharat Forge Ltd. and Ruston & Hornsby (I) Ltd.

Prior to joining YES BANK, Deodutta was responsible for developing and executing the HR strategy at Bajaj Allianz as the Head – HR. He was instrumental in developing a strong performance culture in the organisation along with an effective reward and recognition system. One of his key achievements at Bajaj Allianz was in the area of learning and development with online and offline training programs and leadership development initiatives. Deodutta has successfully conceptualised and implemented an HR IT system at Bajaj Allianz, prior to which, he was with Bharat Forge Ltd,Pune.

Finance, consulting cos have lion's share

Finance, consulting cos have lion's share

STATE BUREAU

Posted online: Thursday, March 08, 2007 at 0020 hours IST

JAMSHEDPUR, MARCH 7 : Finance and consulting jobs are still in focus at top B-schools if one goes by the recently concluded campus recruitment process (CRP) 2007 at the XLRI here.

As much as 30% of the B-school's 180 business management and personnel management & industrial relations students were picked up by the financial sector, while 24% opted for jobs with consulting firms. Hewitt recruited 18 managers.

The other big consulting firms that had their piece of the B-School cake were Ernst & Young, KPMG, McKinsey, Stern Stewart, Mercer, and first-timer Tata Strategic Management Group.

The financial sector picked up 60 graduates, 48 opted for consulting jobs, 40 for the FMCG sector, and the remaining for manufacturing, retail, marketing, etc.

The school has been witnessing the trend towards finance and consulting jobs since last year. "We are offering some elective courses that make it possible for students to opt for combinations of their choice," said N Casamir Raj, director of XLRI, here Wednesday. He said students are now able to 'get what they want'.

This year's campus recruitment process saw a 50% rise in average salary over that of last year.

Last year, the average salary was Rs 8.4 lakh, this time it's Rs 12.6 lakh, with the highest domestic salary offered coming from one of the top consulting companies at Rs 16 lakh and the lowest at Rs 8.6 lakh.

Of the 10 foreign offers, most of them were picked up by graduates with experience behind them. The average salary offered was $85,000 per annum and the highest at $1,00,000 per annum.

Those prepared for finance jobs had plenty of choices before them---treasury sales, investment banking, risk management, equity research, equity sales, credit rating, private equity handling, etc.

The finance sector was represented by recruiters like Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, Rabo Bank, CitiFinancial, ICRA, L&T, Adventity and ICICI Prudential, and banking by HSBC, Deutsche Bank, Citibank, Standard Chartered and UTI Bank. New recruiters like Calyon, IDFC Private Equity, and Ocwen Financials had their pick.

FMCG, which picked up 20% of graduates, included Proctor & Gamble, ITC, Asian Paints, Hindustan Unilever Ltd (HUL), Nokia, Marico, Nestle, Cadbury's, Colgate-Palmolive, Pepsi, ICI Paints, and Reckitt Benckiser.

Reliance Retail, RPG and Raymond made concrete offers, while the general management & strategy sector, represented by entities like Novartis, Aditya Birla Group, Dr Reddy's, and new-comers like Arcelor Mittal Steel, Trident and Pfizer, offered high-level roles to the chosen few.

IT too had offers to make. Cognizant Technology Solutions, Motorola, HP, IBM, TechMahindra, HCL and first-timer Sasken Communication Technologies picked up systems professionals.

Of the 180 that got placed, as many as 86 had job experience behind them. They received 140 job offers laterally from companies.

Finance, consulting firms have lion’s share in Kolkata B-school

Apparently tectonic plate movement has shifted the coordinates of our
alma mater from Jamshedpur to Kolkata...

http://www.financialexpress.com/fe_full_story.php?content_id=157051

JAMSHEDPUR, MAR 7: Finance and consulting jobs continue to be in focus at top B-schools if one goes by the recently concluded campus recruitment process (CRP) at the XLRI here.

While as much as 30% of the B-school’s batch of 180 business management (BM) and personnel management & industrial relations (PM&IR) students were picked up by the financial sector, 24% opted for jobs with consulting firms, which included firms like Hewitt recruiting as many as 18 young managers.

Other big consulting firms which had their piece of the B-school cake were Ernst & Young, KPMG, McKinsey, Stern Stewart, Mercer and the first timer, Tata Strategic Management Group.

Thus, while as many as 60 grads joined the financial sector, 48 opted for consulting jobs, 40 others went for FMCG (fast moving consumer goods) sector and the remaining went for sectors such as manufacturing, retail, marketing, etc. The B-school has been witnessing the new trend towards finance and consulting jobs since last year.

“We are offering some elective courses which make it possible for students to opt for combinations of their choice,” said Father N Casamir Raj, director, XLRI, here on Wednesday, adding that students were now able to “get what they want”.

This year’s campus recruitment process has also seen a 50% rise in the average salary of the batch over that of last year’s. While last year the average salary stood at Rs 8.4 lakh, this time the average salary has been Rs 12.6 lakh.

March 30 XL meet

Dear all,

I am happy to share that we have 31 people confirmed for the XL Europe meet in London on this date. Its going to be an interesting mix of people ('81 batch to '03) with an even more interesting portfolio (industries, businesses and locations...)

So far the confirmed numbers seem to be just about fitting into my home (it may be a bit of a squeeze but given our background of graduating from a small campus with big minds and bigger hearts we should do okay so no worries!)

Now important items - food, drinks and funding

• Food - I am speaking with a few caterers for catering arrangements (delivery at home) with a focus on finger buffet rather than dinner. Do you have any caterer suggestions or recommendations? That would help me so if you do know of any, let me have contact details as soon as possible.

• Drinks - I shall get us some wine (white, red) and liquor (rum, whisky, vodka) with base liquids/ mixes. I shall buy them from Majestic which should sell on a 'return' basis. If you have any specific preferences can I suggest you bring your own please?

• Funding - I shall pay at the moment and will let you know in advance how much is the per head cost. You can get me the cash or drop in a cheque when we meet on Mar 30.

Further, if anyone has any suggestions/ clarifications, please let me know. All inputs/ ideas most welcome.

cheers! reena

Yes Bank appoints Deodutta Kurane as President-Human Capital

Yes Bk appoints Deodutta Kurane as President-Human Capital

2007-03-02 12:30:32 Source : Moneycontrol.com

YES BANK, India’s new age private sector Bank, today announced the appointment of Deodutta R Kurane as the President – Human Capital.

Deodutta in this top leadership position will be directly reporting to the Founder/Managing Director & CEO, Rana Kapoor and will be spearheading the Human Resources function. He will be responsible for implementing innovative HR practices that will identify and nurture talent, evaluate employee contribution and establish action plans for empowering employees across the organisation. His experience and expertise will enable YES BANK to relentlessly work towards its defined objective of becoming the most preferred employer in the Indian Financial Services sector. This reflects the Bank’s pursuit to build the World’s Best Quality Bank in India and create an institution of enduring trust and value.

Deodutta is a Gold Medalist in Industrial Relations and Welfare from the Xavier Labour Relations Institute (XLRI), Jamshedpur and brings with him over 25 years of work experience in diverse facets of HR. He has worked with leading organizations like Bajaj Allianz Life & General Insurance Company Ltd, Bharat Forge Ltd. and Ruston & Hornsby (I) Ltd.