Famous 10 IIM Ahmedabad Alumni Who Made It Big

IIM Ahmedabad has continued to maintain its stature of being one of the top B-schools of India. The growing charm of the institute has left all MBA aspirants dream of entering its gates one day. Not only has IIM Ahmedabad provided best of the placement opportunities, its statistics related to diversity has seen a tremendous positive growth.

The institute has majorly gained prominence because of its rigorous student selection process that later turns into jewels. Amongst them are few famous alumni of IIM Ahmedabad that have made it big in the real world. We bring here the list of the top 10 famous IIM Ahmedabad alumni, in no particular order.

Famous IIM Ahmedabad Alumni

1. Raghuram Rajan (Class of 1987)

Raghuram Govinda Rajan, currently the Katherine Dusak Miller Distinguished Service Professor of Finance at University of Chicago Booth School of Business is remembered for being the 23rd Governor of Reserve Bank of India (Sep 2013-2016). He got into the news for the first time globally after the financial crisis of 2007-2008, already predicted by Rajan at the federal Reserve annual Jackson Hole Conference in 2005. He had presented the pitfalls of the existing financial system and the measures that could be taken to avoid them.

Achievements:
Served as Chief Economist and Director of Research at the International Monetary Fund (IMF). 

2. Harsha Bhogle (Class of 1985)

Harsha Bhogle, the Indian cricket commentator and journalist, is a member in the list of famous alumni of IIM Ahmedabad. Beloved as the ‘voice of Indian cricket’, he has become one of the most popular and prolific personalities in the cricket broadcasting industry. He’s also a columnist for the Indian Express and hosts a show on ESPNStar, ‘Harsha UnPlugged’. He’s been the front man for ESPNStar cricket telecasts from the day the channel was launched in India. He has now taken to the corporate lecture and public speaking circuit with his wife, Anita Bhogle, who’s also his business partner.

3. Sanjeev Bikhchandani (Class of 1989)

Sanjeev Bikchandani also finds his name in the list of famous alumni of IIM Ahmedabad. An entrepreneur, he is the founder of Info Edge which owns portals like naukri.com, India’s leading job site, along with jeevansathi.com, 99acres.com, Brijj.com, Naukrigulf.com etc. Info Edge, Sanjeev’s brainchild, became the first internet company to be listed on the Indian stock exchanges. Sanjeev won the ‘Ernst & Young - Entrepreneur of the year’ award in 2008 for business transformation, along with his partner Hitesh Oberoi. He enjoys public speaking on areas of entrepreneurship and is also a board member of Indus Entrepreneurs in Delhi. His company today employs over 1600 people with a revenue of over 270 crore rupees.

4. Deep Kalra (Class of 1992)

MakeMyTrip, the Indian online travel company, is founded by Deep Kalra, another one in the list of famous alumni of IIM Ahmedabad. A product of St.Stephen’s College, Delhi and subsequently, IIM Ahmedabad, Deep, along with his co-founders, started MakeMyTrip on realising the upcoming opportunities with the growth of internet, after quitting his corporate, stable job. After 11 year of floating his venture, he was ranked No.1 in the list of most powerful digital influencers released by KPMG in 2011.

5. K.V. Kamath (Class of 1971)

Kundapur Vaman Kamath, popularly known as K.V. Kamath, also finds his name in the list of famous alumni of IIM Ahmedabad. He was the former chief of the New Development Bank of BRICS countries, and also served as the chairman of Infosys from 2011 to 2015. He started his career from ICICI in project finance and gained experience in other departments as well. Later, he also worked in the Asian Development Bank. Apart from holding such prominent posts, he is also an independent director on the board of directors of the Houston-based oil services company Schlumberger. Today, his bond to management institutes have stayed through his membership of Governing boards of several institutes - IIM Ahmedabad, Indian School of Business (ISB), National Institute of Bank Management (NIBM), Pandit Deendayal Petroleum University (PDPU) and Manipal Academy of Higher Education. 

6. Arvind Subramanian (Class of 1981)

Arvind Subramanian is an Indian economist, and former Chief Economic Adviser to the Government of India from 2014 to 2018. He’s one of the most famous alumni of IIM Ahmedabad along with being one of the most widely cited economists on Indo-China relations as well as transfer of global economic power. He has served as a Professor of Economics in Ashoka University, Dennis Weatherstone Senior Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics as well as the Senior Fellow at the Center for Global Development. In 2011, the Foreign Policy magazine’s list of top 100 global thinkers also saw his name featured in the list.

7. C.K. Prahlad (Class of 1966)

C.K. Prahlad was a provocative thinker, strategist, educator and one of the famous alumni of IIM Ahmedabad. He’s known for his startling insights, and his contribution to core competence model and co-creation. He worked as a professor at University Of Michigan Ross School Of Business alongside Oracle, TRW, Unilever, AT&T and Cargill as an international business consultant. He also served as an advisor to Jan Timmer, the CEO of the Dutch company Philips, and contributed in designing Centurion. C.K. Prahlad’s last work ‘The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid (2002)’, focused on poverty eradication through profits earned by corporations.

8. Ajay Banga (Class of 1981)

Ajay Banga, the executive chairman of the board of directors of Mastercard, is also a member of the list of famous alumni from IIM Ahmedabad. He began his career at Nestle, graduating from IIM A, and took up roles for three years in the company spanning across different areas such as sales, marketing and general management. Prior to becoming the executive chairman at Mastercard, he was the CEO of Citigroup Asia Pacific. He is also the founding trustee of the U.S.-India Strategic Partnership Forum, and has even served as a member of President Obama’s commission on enhancing cybersecurity. 

9. Shikha Sharma (Class of 1980)

Shikha Sharma’s popularity shot up when she became the managing director and CEO of Axis Bank, India’s third largest private sector bank, from 2009 to 2018. Prior to it, she also worked at ICICI for 29 years. During her last years as the managing director & CEO of ICICI prudential Life Insurance Company, before she joined the Axis bank, ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Company ranked first on the chart of private sector life insurance companies in India in terms of performance. Not only that, even Axis bank under her leadership received many awards. In 2015, it received the ‘Bank of the Year’ award by the Banker magazine, along with a ‘Certificate of Recognition for excellence in Corporate Governance’ by the Institute of Company Secretaries of India (ICSI). Axis Bank was also ranked as the best company to work for in the BFSI sector - 'The Best Companies to Work for' survey by Business Today in 2013

10. Ashish Nanda (Class of 1983)

Ashish Nanda, is a famous alumni of IIM Ahmedabad, and also its former director. His directorship began on 2nd september, 2013 and continued till 2017. Before that, he also worked as a Professor of Practice at harvard law School for seven years, and even before that, he was a faculty member there. He has stayed in-touch with the best B-schools in India, and was the Officiating Director of IIM Nagpur from its inception in 2015 to 2017. After he resigned as the director of IIMA, he again joined Harvard business school as a faculty member. Along with a degree in electrical engineering from IIT Delhi, and PGDM in management from IIMA, he also has PhD in economics from Harvard. He has also worked with the Tata group of companies as the Tata Administrative Services officer. Apart from that, he has also advised several top firms on asset management, consulting, law firms and legal and compliance departments, public relations, advertising etc.

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