The Indian School of Business hosted prominent leaders on October 15th and 16th at its campuses in Hyderabad and Mohali, as part of its flagship leadership conclave. The ISB Leadership summit (ILS), in its fourteenth year, was launched under the theme “Embracing ambiguity: learn, leverage and lead” to provide audience with inspirational tales of success under uncertainty and lessons from failures that shaped India’s current leaders.

The ILS, which in the past has hosted prominent speakers continued to maintain a list of illustrious such as Sir Dominic Asquith, British High Commisioner to India and Mr Bhaskar Pramanik, Chairman Microsoft India who inaugurated the event across the Mohali and Hyderabad campuses respectively.



Beside keynote talks by distinguished speakers such as Shri Suresh Prabhu, Indian Railway Minister and Mr Suresh Narayanan, MD of Nestle, the two day conclave included focus group chats and panels focused on specific themes. The Powerhouse Panel at Mohali for instance included industry stalwarts such as Shanti Ekambaram, Head Consumer Business, Kotak Mahindra; Ravindran Devagunam, Director – PEMANDU, Malaysian PMO; Sanjeev Nikore, President, Strategic Initiatives, Tech Mahindra and Jyoti Kamal, Senior Editor, CNN-IBN. The audience was enthralled with a wide range of diverse insights from this panel such as the changing landscape of business with digitalization, the ambiguity caused by corruption globally and emergence of leaders in the right markets.  Similarly, the Hyderabad campus organized the Startup Panel in line with the booming start up scene in the country featuring Mr. Ankur Warikoo, CEO Nearbuy; Saurabh Kocchar, CEO Foodpanda; Sumit Jain, CEO Commonfloor and Gopal Pillai, Director Amazon.

Given the advent of technology and its role in creating waves of disruption across the world of business, the conclave hosted industry stalwarts such as Ms. Sapna Chadha, Head of Marketing, Google India; Ms. Sonali Malaviya, Head of Marketing, Twitter India and Mr. Suneet Tuli, CEO, Datawind, Akash Tablets. Mr Bhaskar Pramanik, Chairman of Microsoft India while acknowledging the impact of technology on the world emphasized corporate ethics and importance of maintaining one’s values which can be easily compromised when faced with ambiguity.

True to the diversity of ISB’s student body, the conclave also included speakers from off beat professions such as Ms Anisha Motwani, author of ‘Storm the Norm’ and former consultant at the World Bank and Mr Viren Rasquinha, former Indian hockey captain and ISB alumnus and current CEO of the Olympic Gold Quest. Actress turned film maker Ms. Dia Mirza and MD, Sony Pictures Mr. Vivek Krishnani also graced the occasion with enlightening talks on the media and entertainment industry.

The audience which included corporates and students from other colleges were also treated to enthralling music and dance performances organized by the student clubs at ISB. Besides speaker sessions, the students also got the opportunity to personally interact with leaders through closed networking sessions.  Altogether, the two day conclave brought together 47 speakers who highlighted the importance of constantly adapting to change and making intelligent choices at every turn of the road. ILS 2016 kindled thoughts on reimagining leadership and making decisions under conditions of ambiguity and uncertainty which have become more than common in the world of business today.

Contributed by Suvarsha Rai, Aravindh Kamakshinadha, Pavika Singh, Siddharth iyer, Amrita Srivastava