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MDI Gurgaon’s Hall of Fame - The pioneering alumni of all times

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MDI Gurgaon’s Hall of Fame - The pioneering alumni of all times

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MDI (Management Development Institute) Gurgaon has been a trendsetter in the field of education, research, consulting, and executive development and has been vouched for the international quality of education it imparts at the institute. It is the first internationally accredited Indian B-school that received international accreditation by the Association of MBAs (AMBA) London in 2006. MDI Gurgaon was also accredited by South Asian Quality Assurance Systems (SAQS) in 2006. The B-school has successfully incorporated the world’s best academic practices in all its programs and has established its footprint worldwide. MDI Gurgaon has continuously strived to provide the best management education, not just in India, but across the globe.

MDI Gurgaon has continually worked hard for academic excellence and creating leaders who can inspire others. It has an insurmountable legacy of its own, owing to the illustrious alumni who have added jewels to MDI’s crown. The strength of this B-school lies in its alum community which has proved its worth through its achievements in the industry.

The story of every ManDevIan- “Behind you, all your memories; before you, all your dreams; around you, all who love you; within you, all you need”. The unending list of MDI Gurgaon’s alumni is a testament to the fact that this mantra has instilled passion, rigor, and the right amount of motivation in every student who studies here.

1. Anil Sardana (Managing Director and CEO, Adani Transmission Limited)

Anil Sardana is the Managing Director & CEO of Adani Transmission Limited. He was also the CEO & Managing Director of Tata Power for over seven years. Besides this, he was also the founding CEO of Tata Power Delhi Distribution Limited (TPDDL/NDPL).

Anil is credited with leading the transition of Tata Telecom by launching the very successful Tata DOCOMO & Tata Photon brands. He had also worked at NTPC for 14 years and BSES for 7 years before joining Tata Group. He has been bestowed the prestigious ‘Silver National Award for Meritorious Performance’ in Power Distribution by the Prime Minister in the years 2004-2005 and 2005-2006.

Anil Sardana did his schooling from Sardar Patel Vidyalaya, New Delhi and graduated in B.Tech from Delhi College of Engineering. He holds a Postgraduate degree in management from MDI Gurgaon.

2. Durjoy Datta (Writer and Author)

Durjoy Datta is an Indian author and screenwriter known for his coffee-table romantic novels that revolve around Indian adults. After completing his schooling from Bal Bharti Public School, Pitampura, he pursued his mechanical engineering from Delhi Technological University. He did his post-graduation from Management Development Institute, Gurgaon and Frankfurt School of Finance & Management, Germany, and majored in marketing and finance. He started writing while he was in the final year of his college. In 2011, he quit his job at American Express as a marketing analyst and turned full-time writer, and never looked back.

He has authored 20 novels and 2 short stories besides scripting for television shows like Kuch Rang Pyar ke Aise Bhi (2016-2017), Sadda Haq - My Life, My Choice (2013-2016) and others. Durjoy has many accolades to his name - in 2011, he won the Young Achievers Award in the field of Media and Communications by Whistling Woods International, in 2017, Dutta bagged the Crossword Book Award, Popular Choice Award, Fiction, for Our Impossible Love including other recognitions.

3. Vikas Bajaj (Managing Director, Bajaj Motors Limited)

An alumnus of MDI Gurgaon, Vikas Bajaj has many jewels attached to his name. He holds the post of Director and Managing Director at several companies. Currently, he is the Managing Director at Bajaj Motors Limited since September,1993.

Bajaj has extensive professional expertise in general management, strategic management, and corporate leadership, spanning over 27 years. Bajaj, a production engineer, holds an MBA in operations management from the Management Development Institute in Gurgaon, in addition to his engineering degree.

Besides this, Vikas Bajaj is the President of the Association of Indian Forging Industry. In his present role at AIFI, Vikas Bajaj will be responsible for strengthening the member base, driving strategic alliances and representing AIFI with various government bodies and other stakeholders. He has been serving as the Managing Director at Esvee Precision Components Limited since August, 1999. He is also the Director at Microtek Forgings Private Limited since August, 2002.

4. Ajay Atreya (General Manager, Tata Consultancy Services)

Consulting Partner-Risk Advisory, at Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) Australia and New Zealand, Ajay Atreya is currently the General Manager. Prior to getting promoted to the position of GM, Ajay served as Associate General Manager and Vice President at Tata e-serve International Limited. Including these, this alumni of MDI Gurgaon has also worked as the Chief Manager at ICICI Bank from July, 2004 till January, 2008.

His work at TCS enables firms to comply with regulatory and statutory requirements by designing and deploying robust operational risk management frameworks. His responsibilities also include running back-end operations-India geography for MNC Banks. Ajay gave his career a kick start by joining ICICI bank.

His role at ICICI involved planning, scheduling, and implementing various phases of the merger activity. The challenge was to manage a smooth transition for the branches of the erstwhile organization into the ICICI Bank network to enhance business. While working as the Regional Manager at ICICI he was the Cluster Head of 11 branches in North Mumbai, with employee strength of 161. Responsible for customer service, deposit mobilization, revenue generation through sale of fee products as well as cross-sell asset products.

5. Amit Boni (Founder and CEO, Ensuredit and Former MD, Motorola)

Amit Boni is currently serving as the Founder and CEO of Ensuredit since January 2019. Ensuredit Technologies is a platform integrated via APIs with major insurance companies in both life and non-life categories. He is also the Managing Director of Motorola India.

As the CEO and Managing Director for Motorola India, Amit Boni is credited with starting & scaling up Motorola Mobility's business in India from scratch to a Billion dollar business. He was the CBO of Smartron where he built a global brand with cutting-edge technology. As a telecom business leader with significant industry-changing credits, he has led global businesses for Honeywell, Motorola & Smartron in various capacities.

Amit has also served as Chairman of Board of Directors of Motorola Mobility India; and has advised multiple organizations as part of their advisory/board including Redquanta, Global wallet, invios & Ensuredit. Amit has graduated in Industrial Engineering from NIT, Jalandhar and pursued his MBA from MDI Gurgaon in 2002.

6. Neeraj Kakkar (CEO and Co-Founder, Hector Beverages)

Neeraj Kakkar is the CEO and Co-founder of Hector Beverages Private Limited, which manufactures Paper Boat drinks, Tzinga Energy drinks, and a lot more. Kakkar is the CEO of Paper Boat, which was launched in 2013 and is dedicated to manufacturing traditional drinks such as Aam Panna, Jaljeera to emanate the inherited Indian drinks to an urban market.

He was also the General Manager at the Coca-Cola company, India. Neeraj pursued a Post Graduate Program in Management (PGDM) from MDI Gurgaon and later did an MBA from The Wharton School.

7. Annurag Batra (Chairman & Editor in Chief - BW Businessworld)

Annurag Batra is the Chairman and Editor-in-chief of BW Businessworld Media Group. He was also the Chairman, Editor-in-chief, and Managing Director of exchange4Media Group. An alumnus of MDI Gurgaon, Annurag was also the Principal Advisor at Stylekandy.com and the Head of Media Planner and Portland Delhi at J. Walter Thompson.

Annurag Batra is a B.Tech in Computer Sciences from Maharshi Dayanand University and pursued his MBA from MDI Gurgaon.

8. Thariyan Chacko (Group Manager - Partner Business Operations [APAC, AUS, INDIA] at Microsoft)

Thariyan Chacko is the Group Manager at Microsoft where he leads a talented group of Partner Business Managers through the next phase of partner enablement. He was also the Senior Marketing Communications Manager at APAC and the Senior Manager of Prioritisation Management at Microsoft, Asia.

As an alumnus of MDI Gurgaon, he was also the Manager of Marketing, Advertising, and Planning at Emerio, and a Programmer Analyst at Syntel.

9. Charu Mittra (Director Human Resources at PVH {Tommy Hilfiger and Calvin Klein})

Charu is the Director of Human Resources at PVH- Tommy Hilfiger and Calvin Klein. She is a strategic HR professional with strong experience in Talent Strategy and HR Business Partnering. Charu has been the General Manager of Operational Capabilities at PepsiCo and the Vice-President of Human Resources at Citibank India. She was also the Head of Human Resources and a part of the Global HR Network Management team at BMW Group. Before joining the PVH Group, she also worked as the Talent Strategy HR at Deloitte in Amsterdam.

10. Vishal Bhatia (COO, KFC MENA)

Vishal Bhatia is currently the Chief Operating Officer at KFC (Kuwait Food Company, Americana) where he led the Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) franchise across the Middle East and North Africa region.

An alumnus of MDI Gurgaon, Vishal is an entrepreneurial leader with an experience of more than 20 years in creating businesses across the world. He has been the Brand Manager of Britannia and the Marketing Head at PepsiCo. He has also created an e-commerce native business through innovative operating models at Swiggy, where he was the CEO of Swiggy New Supply, after having worked at Reckitt Benckiser (RB), where he led the global growth strategy and innovation agenda on Dettol/Lysol personal hygiene.

11. KS Sabarinadhan ( Member of Kerala Legislative Assembly)

KS Sabarinadhan is an Indian politician who has represented Aruvikkara in the Kerala Legislative Assembly from 2015-2021. He belongs to the Indian National Congress and is the Vice-President of the Kerala Youth Congress. He graduated from College of Engineering Trivandrum in 2005 in Electrical Engineering and went ahead to pursue his MBA from MDI Gurgaon in 2008. After his post-graduation, he worked with the Tata Group for many years and even spent a few years working with the Tata Trusts in the field of nutrition and healthcare.

12. Anand Narang (Vice President, Marketing & Customer Experience, Bata)

As the Vice President of Bata, Anand Narang has led the reposition of the company as a digital-centric lifestyle & fashion brand and has driven revenue, profit & brand-building for over 1500 Bata & Hush Puppies retail stores, e-commerce, wholesale & franchise in India. He has also been the Vice President and Head of Marketing at Reliance Jio, where he launched an ecosystem of smartphones & internet devices that put fast 4G internet & services in place.

Anand was also the Marketing and Solutions Director at Huawei; the Global Activation Head at Nokia UK, and the Product Manager at Bharti Airtel Limited.

He did his graduation in Electronics from Punjab Engineering College and pursued his MBA from MDI Gurgaon.

13. D K Bhalla (Advisor/Consultant at Govt. of Nagaland)

D.K. Bhalla is an IAS officer who is an advisor/consultant at the Government of Nagaland. He has been the Secretary at Lok Sabha, where he was the overall in-charge of complete Establishment and Administration of the Parliament Secretariat. He was also the Executive Director at Food Corporations of India under the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Joint Secretary of Import and Export.

D.K. Bhalla was also the Commissioner of tourism and sports, women and child development, and social welfare at the Government of Nagaland. He was also the Deputy Secretary of the Land Reform Division at the Government of India.

He completed his graduation and post-graduation from the University of Sagar, and pursued his MBA from MDI Gurgaon (in collaboration with Kelloggs School).

14. Amit Khanna (Partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers)

An alumnus of MDI Gurgaon, Amit Khanna is the partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers, an MNC that is the second-largest professional services network in the world and is considered one of the Big Four accounting firms, along with Deloitte, EY and KPMG. He was also the Managing Partner at YDatalytics and Antuit UK Limited, London.

Amit has also remained a partner at KPMG and Accenture where he led sales transformation, segmentation, customer insight and analytics practice.

He did his graduation from Bundelkhand Institute of Engineering and Technology and pursued his MBA from MDI Gurgaon and is about to complete his Ph.D from IIM, Lucknow.

As a premier B-School of India, MDI Gurgaon has an unending illustrious alumni list. The school firmly stands on the pillars of practical exposure and outstanding academic outputs. No doubt, it is also the most favoured stopover for corporate bigwigs too. Studying from such a respectable place is glory in itself.

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