Our Aspiration Shouldn’t Be Only to Become ‘Developed’, but to Be Sustainable

Your career spans corporate consulting, international development and academia, including roles at KPMG, Infosys, Arghyam and IIM Bangalore’s Centre for Public Policy. How has this cross-sectoral experience shaped your view of what makes strategy both effective and sustainable today?

Well, the interesting thing is that when I was doing my PGDM at IIM Bangalore, I initially wanted to specialise in strategy, marketing and entrepreneurship. In the end, I didn’t specialise. I simply took courses I thought were useful. Eventually, I left the corporate sector, worked in the non-profit sector, went back to studying, moved into academia and worked with various international organisations.

Now, as a faculty member in a business school teaching sustainability, circular economy and public policy, my goal is to challenge conventional thinking. The way business programmes are structured, students are exposed to a wide variety of management thought, mostly in conventional terms. The course structures haven’t changed much since I was a student. Only recently have we started seeing courses such as corporate sustainability and business models for the circular economy introduced in some Indian B-schools.

My batchmates at IIMB were very fond of a course on social entrepreneurship by Trilochan Shastri. He pushed us to think harder about why entrepreneurship can’t also be about solving social problems, and I see my role similarly. My goal is to encourage students to ask: why can’t we move toward a circular economy? If not fully transitioning from a linear model, then at least taking steps in that direction?

I want students to return to their organisations and become agents of transformation, working within existing frameworks to help clients and companies think harder about why a transition to a circular economy matters. That’s why I emphasise frameworks in my courses. I want students to use these frameworks in the real world to make organisations more sustainable.

Could you describe the key inflection points that led you from engineering and consulting toward academia and sustainability?

I think my biggest Rubicon moment came after I failed to crack CAT in 2004. I was also going through a tough breakup at the time and began questioning what I really wanted to do in life. I was determined to sit for CAT again, and in spite of personal struggles, I focused on it and eventually got into IIM Bangalore.

Getting into IIM Bangalore is one of my proudest achievements. That was a key turning point. Another came midway through the programme, when I encountered courses such as “Managing Your Career and Growth” offered by RT Krishnan (now director of IIM Bangalore), as well as others by Professor Vasanthi Srinivasan and conversations with Professor Saurav Mukherjee. Around the same time, I also started speaking with people in the not-for-profit sector.

I realised I wanted my work to have impact and to engage with issues I felt passionate about. Meanwhile, I kept hearing that many peers who joined the corporate world were unhappy, even though they were high achievers in impressive roles. That made me reflect more deeply. I started reading more widely beyond coursework and became drawn to environmental issues. I’ve written about this in an article for the IIMB Alumni Association that’s also on my blog.

I explored different ideas and workplaces, wrote a thesis on sustainable consumption during my postgraduate degree in environmental law, and found myself drawn toward sustainability. I just followed that path from there. It wasn’t always easy — there were many ups and downs — but it’s been fulfilling. Even now, I work long days and haven’t taken a break in six weeks, but I don’t regret my choices.

How has your international experience shaped your view of what Indian organisations must do to compete globally on sustainability?

There are two aspects to this. One, I’ve lived, worked and travelled across multiple continents. Two, I’ve studied issues from a cross-national, cross-sectional perspective.

In general — and of course I’m still learning — I think Indian organisations need to become more ambitious. While there are regulatory challenges, those shouldn’t stop us from leapfrogging ahead of international organisations. In my course on International Business Models and Circular Economy, students and I examine cutting-edge developments globally, but we don’t hear much of similar innovations happening in India.

With a central government focused on encouraging startups, I think our startups need to believe in themselves more and start competing globally. While incremental innovations are important, what we really need are bold, dramatic developments that challenge the status quo.

When we look at China’s trajectory, many of us are inspired, but we also wonder why India hasn’t caught up. We should be asking whether we need to keep playing by the rules set by others, or start framing our own. China’s growth trajectory may offer insights here: did they play by global rules, or redefine them? These are the kinds of questions we need to explore if we’re serious about transformation.

Based on your work across institutions and sectors, what do you see as the most significant gaps in how Indian businesses currently engage with public policy? 

I recently attended a talk by one of HCL Technologies’ founders, now a major public policy voice. The current central administration is actively encouraging the private sector to engage in public policy issues, but I’d like to approach this from a different angle.

Many of our students, peers and seniors will eventually move from business roles into positions that shape the country’s future. When they take on those roles, they’ll face the consequences of the decisions they make today. So, if today’s business leaders don’t talk about sustainability or push their organisations in that direction, they may later find themselves dealing with problems they themselves contributed to.

This continuity between business and policy roles needs to be acknowledged. Leaders should ask themselves: Will I be creating future problems I’ll later be responsible for solving?

As India transitions to green energy and sustainable production, what unique trade-offs do business leaders face, and which underappreciated policies or frameworks deserve more attention in Indian boardrooms?

Approximately 79 per cent of Fortune 500 companies are involved in circular economy efforts. About 25 per cent of consulting assignments in India now touch on sustainability. Whether or not those numbers are fully accurate, they point to something: globally, a transition is under way, and there’s growing focus on corporate sustainability.

If that’s the case, then why do interns from our institution often report that their organisations are doing little or nothing on sustainability? Why isn’t XLRI receiving more sustainability-related consulting work from the organisations where our students work? Why do companies prefer working only with international institutions on sustainability issues, instead of collaborating with Indian institutes that also house strong talent?

Indian businesses need to engage more deeply with Indian B-schools on these issues. They shouldn’t be chasing Harvard or Oxford just for their brand value. If they expect Indian B-schools to train their students on upcoming challenges, they should invest in that process by offering projects, engaging with faculty and collaborating more meaningfully.

Strategic planning in corporations tends to prioritise short- to medium-term outcomes. How does this narrow focus fall short when viewed through a public policy lens, and what would a more systems-aware, anticipatory approach look like in practice?

There’s ample evidence that environmentally conscious economic decisions are not financially unviable. But many of us are in denial; we’re like camels hiding our faces in a sandstorm.

The reality is that if the planet is to survive — and by extension, humanity — we can’t continue polluting and ignoring environmental limits. If countries in Europe have met or exceeded their IPCC climate targets, it’s because, a decade ago, they dared to go beyond what others thought was possible.

In India, we can’t keep hiding behind our “developing country” status or our low per capita emissions. These facts are true, but they shouldn’t justify continued inaction. We should aim to be as bold as those European countries once were. Protecting the environment needs to become a visible, large-scale priority — not just small internal tweaks.

Our aspiration shouldn’t be only to become “developed”, but to be sustainable. And our country becomes sustainable only when our companies and institutions are. When individuals, across all roles, begin embedding sustainability into their daily decision-making, only then will organisations start shaping a better future.

The regulatory landscape, especially around climate action, data governance and digital infrastructure, is evolving rapidly. What is one strategic question Indian business leaders are not asking but urgently should?

In our introductory courses on Business, Government and Society (BGS), one core idea we stress is that businesses don’t operate in a vacuum. They’re part of society, and society is part of the planet. What businesses do affects society, and what society does affects the planet, which in turn reacts.

If our actions harm the planet, we will bear the consequences. When students become leaders, their actions must reflect this understanding. Externalities must be internalised. If we genuinely value this process, we can no longer argue that sustainability simply leads to higher costs.

Business education often centres on themes such as growth, disruption and competitive advantage. How do you approach teaching concepts such as stewardship, policy alignment and circularity within strategic management courses, and how do students typically respond to these broader frames?

I’ve been at this institution for nine months and have taught a course on the circular economy for one month. I’m pleasantly surprised by how students have responded. Many of them chose project topics that aim to create impact right here at XLRI, addressing sustainability issues within the campus itself.

When I designed the project component, I hadn’t anticipated this level of engagement. I also find that several students, especially those with manufacturing experience, contribute far more meaningfully to class discussions than I or my peers could during our own business school days.

So, I feel optimistic. I don’t see the same kind of resistance among students that I used to see among peers in my own time. That said, I wish more students were enrolling in these courses. Sustainability should not be relegated to electives or side topics. We need more such courses, and they should be core.

Business education prepares students for today’s workplace, but the world is changing. We need to prepare them for the future. Introducing just one new course on corporate sustainability is not enough. We need dramatic curricular reform. Every core course — marketing, strategy, finance —should have a significant sustainability component.

In your view, what role can cross-sector forums such as Xplore play in cultivating future leaders who are equipped not just for profit maximisation, but for navigating complex societal and ecological systems?

We need to stop producing run-of-the-mill content. We should be writing on issues that aren’t yet mainstream in India — and that’s easy to do. Just take an Indian company and compare it to a Scandinavian peer. If they’re doing something different, that’s a story worth telling.

Forums such as Xplore should focus on engaging with visionaries, people who are challenging and changing the system. Wouldn’t it be more exciting to join an organisation that’s trying to drive transformation, instead of just coding from a template or implementing existing systems?

If we’re going to work so hard, stay up all night and give up our weekends, we might as well do it for something that creates impact.