“An eminent and distinguished panel of speakers spanning diverse industries and experiences; speaking candidly on a topic that impacts them directly and leaving the audience enthralled and demanding for more. All of that and much more happened in the second in the series of the annual Leadership Seminars held in S.P. Jain Institute of Management and Research on January 4, 2008. Spanning both the corporate and the social sector the discussion brought a fresh perspective to the topic ‘Business Leadership in the changing Socio-economic context’.

Mr. Lalit Kumar, President and CEO, Reliance Pharmaceuticals Ltd. discussed the history of Indian economy and took the audience through the course of events starting from liberalization of the Indian economy to the globalization wave driving the country today.

Mr. Sanjay Sachdeva, Country Head, Shensai Bank pointed out the huge infrastructural gap existing in the country and the role the corporate sector is playing in reducing

Mr. Viren Popli, Senior VP, Star India and an alumnus of SPJIMR threw light on the internal structuring of organisations and how they needed to evolve with the dynamic environment. He encouraged the participants to concentrate not on the successes but the setbacks faced by leaders so as learn from their mistakes.

Mr. Ujjwal Banerjee, ‘Lead India’ finalists- Manager, Akanksha Foundation appended a completely different flavour to the potpourri of ideas and opinions by rejecting the Government’s ability to actually implement their brilliant plans. He called upon the industrial sector to pour in their reach and resources for this cause.

The panel discussion was moderated by Prof. Jiban Mukhopadhayay, ex-economic advisor of TATA group and currently a senior faculty member at SPJIMR. The power packed discourse saw several points discussed especially the real purpose of business being restricted to wealth creation or not, the role of the corporate in the face of an inefficient government, the responsibility a business has towards the society it seeks to influence and derives its profits from and the relevance/effectiveness of CSR initiatives in organisations.

Learning can never be complete without academic inputs, and Prof. Lata Dhir and Mr. Keith D’souza, the conveners of the Leadership Seminar from SPJIMR provided the insights on the topic from the academic perspective.

All in all it was an evening to remember! SPJIMR was proud to host this seminar and shall endeavour to host similar programs in future under their Leadership committee and CLP elective. Leadership committee is focussed to do an ongoing leadership series and research in the area of leadership. Contemporary leadership Practices was born out of the need to focus on an effective and symbiotic relationship between the Industry and the Institute in the field of Leadership. As an initiative to gather first hand inputs from thought leaders and institution builders across domains in the field of Leadership and Institution building ,the seminar was a step forward in that direction.