‘Young Entrepreneur’ Awardee Mr. Rahul Dasgupta shares his journey towards success with the youth

Interview by Sakshi Aggarwal

Currently, the Managing Director of Globsyn Business School, Mr. Rahul leads the marketing and business functions for all of the group’s forays in Education and Skills.

An alumnus of Durham Business School, UK, Mr. Rahul has also participated in Executive Senior Management Programs from IIM Ahmedabad and Wharton Business School.

Mr. Rahul has played an important role in under laying the need for various stakeholders to come together to make skill development a truly holistic and socio-economic exercise one that reaches out to large sections of society.

Mr. Rahul has been instrumental in guiding and growing Globsyn Group’s Education (GBS) and Skills businesses. Globsyn Skills (a JV company with NSDC) is a social enterprise, which today, in a short span of a little over 3 years, has expanded its footprint across India. Globsyn Skills today works with the central government, various state governments, educational organizations and private sector companies and has trained over 80,000 youth across several sectors comprising of Banking, Insurance, Telecom, Retail, Security, Beauty and Wellness, Hospitality and Plumbing among others.

Mr. Rahul has been the brains behind creating Globsyn Skills’ unique ‘partner eco-system framework’ and has built a robust services delivery chain comprising over 500 centers, spread across 21 states with a large ‘on call’ pool of 350+ trainers and faculty members. Mr. Rahul envisages growing Globsyn Skills to a 2,000 centers operation and training over 200,000 youth over the next 3 years.

Mr. Rahul has been the chief architect behind Globsyn’s innovative Management Apprenticeship Program and leads the industry-academia integration to change the way management education is delivered in the country.

Mr. Rahul has had a successful industry stint prior to joining Globsyn and has worked for Fortune 500 companies like Merrill Lynch and Co. Inc and Deloitte and Touche and was also a part of the latter’s special committee team sent to India to set-up their Forensic Practice. Mr. Rahul has recently been awarded the “Young Entrepreneur Award” in the field of education by the “Indian Achievers Foundation” at the National Seminar on best CSR Practices held in New Delhi.

Mr. Rahul Dasgupta’s experience in the education industry

Globsyn Business School (GBS) was founded by Mr. Bikram Dasgupta, the Founder and Executive Chairman of Globsyn Group in line with his vision of building Institution and Infrastructure in the state of West Bengal. Mr. Dasgupta conceptualized GBS as a Corporate B-School, having to identify a need to merge industry requirements and academia in its curriculum to build industry-relevant managers. Our founder’s 30 years’ entrepreneurial experience in the IT industry, allowed him to identify resource gaps in management skill across the industry, which led to the creation of GBS in 2002.

Globsyn Business School’s edifice is built on the triad of Innovation, Research, and Technology, which forms the bulwark of all academic delivery in our school. Our experience has been extremely positive during this journey of 15 years, having built a business school of national repute during this period. Started as the first Corporate B-School in 2002, Globsyn Business School’s campus got AICTE approval in 2011 and now has over 2800+ alumni. Our PGDM program was accredited by the National Board of Accreditation (NBA) in 2017, which is the highest accreditation for management education in the country and is also accorded equivalence to an MBA degree of an Indian University as per Association of Indian Universities. For us, the pace at which the education industry evolves, makes it the most interesting industry to work in. From technology advances to new pedagogy, every element of this industry makes it exciting and keeps us moving forward. We continuously work with the corporates to revamp our curriculum, develop our faculty and align them with the ever-evolving needs of the industry. Globsyn’s background in technology is deep-rooted in the operations of the B-School. The challenges faced while working in this industry and the continuous solutions that Globsyn arrives are what motivates my team and me to be a part of it.

Know more about the faculty at Globsyn Business School here.

Significant challenges faced by Mr. Rahul Dasgupta as a part of Globsyn Business School

There are two major challenges that are faced by the education industry at large. First, the pace at which the global economy and corporate world are evolving - skillsets that were relevant even 5 years ago are not relevant today. The education industry needs to keep pace with this change and update their curriculum architecture on a regular basis, with the involvement of the corporates. At Globsyn, corporates and industry leaders are involved at every level of the curriculum architecture development. The second challenge is finding the right method of academic delivery. It is evident now that pedagogy that has been used earlier is not relevant to teach the youth of today. Today’s youth, with the huge penetration and access to brontobytes of data, require a learner-centric technology-enabled pedagogy. Globsyn, through its Knowledge Finishing School (KFS) system, pioneered by our Chairman in 1996, and eGlobsyn, a web 2.0 platform dedicated to the students of GBS, tries to address this challenge. The KFS System moves beyond the acquisition of knowledge and stress on the application and management of it. We ensure the students are equipped with knowing skills, doing skills and being skills as part of the curriculum architecture.

Curriculum at Globsyn Business School

Our curriculum architecture is always evolving at periodic intervals. In addition, as per our internal policies, at least 30% of our curriculum is updated every year, with inputs from our corporate partners and senior alumni. This curriculum is further vetted by our Academic Council and Governing Council, which includes industry stalwarts and academicians. As I mentioned earlier, our programs are delivered based on the KFS System, which ensures students of Globsyn Business School are trained and developed to apply the knowledge acquired in class from the day they are part of the global corporate workforce. Our Corporate Relationship Program ensures there is the continuous engagement of the students with the corporate world. We also ensure that our faculties regularly participate in consulting and research projects with the industry to keep them aligned with industry trends and developments.

Goals in mind for Globsyn Business School

Globsyn Business School is aiming to be among the Top 50 B-Schools in India by 2022. As per Business India’s Best B-Schools Survey 2016, Globsyn Business School is ranked among the Top 5 B-School’s in Eastern India and is ranked as the No. 1 Private B-School in Kolkata. We hope to keep improving our rankings. Globsyn Business School’s PGDM program is now accredited by the NBA. With only 8% of B-Schools getting the NBA accreditation, this feat has also strengthened our belief that we are not only a school of choice in the region but also nationally. We are further strengthening our team of faculty, curriculum architecture and relation with corporates to align ourselves towards our goal. Thus, ensuring our quality of academic delivery is only bettered.

Quality of education in Globsyn Business School  

We believe that education takes place both inside and outside classrooms and both are equally necessary for the holistic development of the students. At Globsyn Business School, we have an initiative called Beyond Education, which allows the students to learn different facets of management education. From care for society and live projects to entrepreneurship development and management conferences, the Beyond Education activities of the school help to develop our students to become responsible, holistic managers. Moreover, to improve the level of education inside the classroom, we regularly conduct faculty development programs, where our faculties undergo training on developing contemporary teaching methods and to keep themselves relevant to industry requirements. Research is also a primary focus area at GBS. Our Management Conference and Management Journal not only provide a platform for our faculty to present and publish their research papers but, also sees participation from academicians and corporates nationally.

School culture in Globsyn Business School

We believe in building a learning environment where every student feels accepted, respected and engaged with the school over the two years. We do this by taking regular feedbacks from various stakeholder – students, parents, corporates, and faculty – to continuously evolve and develop a positive culture among all stakeholders of the school.

Mr. Rahul Dasgupta’s relationship with the students

Globsyn Business School has an active Student Council and task forces, which forms the pivot around which the relationship between the school administration and the student body revolves. We have devised a structure between the Student Council and school administration that ensures regular two-way communication, through periodic meetings. The Student Council, which consists of students who are good in both academics and extracurricular activities, are the custodian of the live projects and engagements at Globsyn Business School.

Growth of students through placement opportunities available at Globsyn Business School 

At Globsyn Business School we are fortunate to have a large network of alumni (2800+) and corporates that help to build our Corporate Relationship Program throughout the year. Over the years, 350+ corporates have worked with GBS. In the last academic year, we have seen 80+ national and international corporates like Amazon, Reckitt, and Benckiser, Nestle, HDFC, PwC, among a host of others, visit our campus throughout the year for various engagements including recruitment. Our alumni network also participates in mentorship programs to help our graduating students’ transition into the corporate world.

Read more about the placement opportunities available in Globsyn Business School here.

Mr. Rahul Dasgupta’s philosophy of leadership and his leadership style

“A leader is best when people barely know he exists when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves.” This quote by Lao Tzu summaries my philosophy of leadership. I believe in transformational leadership and allow my team the independence to perform or fail and then grow out of it. Feedback from both the sides is what allows me and my team to work together in such a dynamic and exciting industry.

Suggestions for the current youth and the aspiring students

My first suggestion to the students would be to always-stay relevant and updated with the needs of the industry so that they can keep progressing in their career. More importantly, the youngsters should understand that the return on investment in education is always long term and they should be more concerned about where they end up in their career and not where they start it. They should always be ready to explore, travel, take risks with themselves and should be able to answer the simple question – why they are doing what they are doing?