Dr. Sandeep Sawant is the Director at Kohinoor Management School, Mumbai. He has a Masters of Management Studies (MMS) and Masters in Organic Chemistry (M.Sc.). He also has a Ph.D. in Sustainability. Being a Design Thinker and Sustainability Assessor, he has a total of 25 years of combined industry and academic experience. He also has 12 years of industry experience in Marketing. As an educator for the last 13 years, he is teaching subjects including Marketing, Consumer Behaviour, Marketing Strategy, Design Thinking, and Sustainability. He also has experience in academic administration, Program Architecture, Pedagogic Innovations, Industry-Academic interfaces. He has conducted MDP programs and written research papers for Journals. He has a Student-centric and Industry centric approach in his regular operations.

Kohinoor Management School

What is your philosophy of leadership?

“The ability to inspire, motivate, and transform people” 

Leaders must answer two basic questions - who are they? and where do they get their inspiration from? The first step of leadership is to set an example. A journey of self-awareness and pursuing one's vision is at the core of this exercise. Leadership is about inspiring, motivating, and transforming people so they become better than what they were before.

How does the curriculum of Kohinoor Management School ensure the best practice of industry?

“The program encompasses emerging technologies, data analysis, and sustainability”

The PGDM is designed to develop professional managers with strong fundamental knowledge, crucial skills, and a positive attitude. The program architecture has been designed by industry experts and academics to address the most cutting edge developments in business management. As the world is awakening to the need, this helps integrate the latest concepts and paradigms into the curriculum. New age themes like emerging technologies, data analytics and sustainability are deeply embedded in the program architecture. Our course also incorporates design thinking along with systems thinking. Curriculum also addresses the most crucial need for a management professional - soft skills.

How does the institute help its students achieve their dreams?

“Aspirations are nurtured with technologies and corporate readiness program”

Changing mindsets is the goal of Management Education. The aspirations of our students are high, so we ensure that we nurture them to achieve their goals. We have a strong industry-academic interface whereby industry experts, CEOs interact with our students. Our program architecture includes an Industry Immersion Project, where a student studies an industry of his interest, covering all aspects of it. This strengthens his/her business analytical skills. 

New technologies AI, Internet of things are embedded in the program architecture. We also have tie-ups with NEN, to nurture entrepreneurial skills amongst our students. To make them corporate ready, we have a corporate readiness program as well.

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What do you think should be the Institute’s top priority over the next 10 years?

“To focus more towards hybrid form of learning and education”

In the modern world, one has to reinvent oneself to remain relevant. To quote Andy Groove of Intel “Only the paranoid survive”. The issues of climate change, depletion of non-renewable resources, the new world order are also critical. The pandemic has brought to fore the hybrid form of learning. The institute has started taking steps to embed new technology, paradigms and crucial skills such as empathy, resilience, and trust in its curriculum. The topmost priority would be to make the course contemporary and bridge the gap between academics and industry.

What has been your vision for the growth of this institute?

“The goal is to integrate industry and academia and educate students continuously”

Working in Industry for 12 years, my vision was to create an institute with a strong Industry-academia interface and to focus on educating students to have a triple bottom line focus. Efforts have been made to enhance our course to keep up with changes in business paradigms, technology, and sustainability.

What do you see as the Institute's greatest strengths?

“Continual learning and creativity are key to our success”

Our belief in our core values of Customer Focus, Continuous learning and creativity and innovation has helped us immensely. We are completely student-centric in nature and motivate them to fulfil their aspirations.

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What are Kohinoor Management School's strategies in these difficult pandemic times?

“Using technology as a teaching tool has been made possible by the lockdown" 

Coping with the COVID-19 scenario is particularly complicated for educational institutions. Because they serve such a wide variety of functions. An educational institution has to cater to its most important stakeholder, the students. The activity which was happening with face to face interaction will now be more digitized with online teaching and learning.

However, like most proactive and responsible institutions of India, we were quick enough to move classes online. The process was challenging for everyone. The response was phenomenally positive from the students and the faculty. It is a learning tool and a teaching tool for both faculty and students.