CHICAGO BOOTH INDIA LEADERSHIP SUMMIT 2009

The Chicago Booth India Leadership Summit is one of its kind amongst those organized by business schools all over USA. This is the 5th annual conference organized by the South Asia Business Group at Chicago Booth that successfully brings together leading business visionaries, top faculty and students from India, US and around the world to discuss and debate the key issues facing India's economy. This year, the theme of the conference was - 'Fueling the Indian Growth - What Lies Ahead?'. The various panels debated pressing issues that face India in this time of global crisis.

 

Luminaries like Mr. Gurcharan Das (MD, P&G Worldwide, Author of “India Unbound”), Prof. Scott Meadow (acclaimed VC and Professor at Chicago Booth) and Prof. Raghuram Rajan (Former Chief Economist of IMF, Economic Advisor to PM of India, Dr. Manmohan Singh and Professor at Chicago Booth) and Mr. Ashok Kumar Attri (Ambassador, Consul General of India to Chicago Consulate) addressed packed audiences. They provided critical insight into matters of policy, the role of entrepreneurship in India and the reforms in the Indian political system.

 

The other discussions during the day were centered on sectors such as Infrastructure, Education, Healthcare, Entrepreneurship, Technology and Finance - areas vital to India's growth.

 
Infrastructure - The Infrastructure panel focussed on the challenges and the opportunities for both the private and the public sector in India. The panel was moderated by Dr. Paula Worthington who is a Senior Lecturer at the Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago. Mr. Mandhana - Managing Director, IDFC PE India provided insight into the Indian power sector, which is expected to attract the most private equity investments in the next couple of years. Meanwhile Dr. Santanu Das – CEO of Transwitch Corporation mostly addressed the development needs of telecommunication infrastructure and explained why India is destined to become the hot bed for telecom innovation. Ms. Zielinski – MD SMART University of Michigan; an expert in multi-modal transportation in emerging markets gave an insightful presentation on how governments should focus on addressing transportation issues by taking a multi-modal view, while developing sustainable infrastructure for growing cities.

 
Education - The Education Panel at the India Leadership Summit 2009 highlighted the need for private Education in India given the dearth of an efficient public education system in the country. The panelists included Mr Shantanu Prakash, CEO of Educomp, Mr Arvind Amin, Secretary Pratham USA and Mr. Karan Goel, CEO of PrepMe.

 

Mr. Karan Goel moderated the panel to highlight the opportunities for both non-profit and for-profit institutions to step in to provide the educational impetus required in the country. Mr. Shantanu Prakash highlighted the multi-billion dollar opportunity for entrepreneurs to develop businesses in the for-profit Education space and talked about Educomp’s success. His discussion underscored the importance of public private partnerships in the Education space for K-12, higher education and vocational education.

Healthcare - The Indian healthcare industry is expected to become a US $280 Billion industry by 2022. At the same time, the country faces a shortage of institutions and trained personnel, especially in rural India. What are the opportunities and challenges that lie ahead in this rapidly growing sector and what should be the path forward? To answer these questions, we had the Healthcare Panel at ILS 2009. Our panelists consisted of Mr. Rajiv Garg (CEO, Wyckoff Heights Medical Center), Mr. Dave Johnson (Senior MD and Co-Head of Healthcare Finance Practice, Ziegler) and Dr. Vijay Yeldandi (Program Director, Resurrection-Westlake Internal Medicine Residency Program). Dr. Satchit Balsari (Fellow, Harvard Humanitarian Initiative) moderated the panel.

 

As a member of the International Advisory Council for MediCity, a new 1600-bed academic medical center opening in 2009 outside New Delhi, Mr. Johnson spoke about how highly cost-effective and world-class medical centers were transforming the country into a hub for medical tourism. Addressing the issue of Healthcare funding and prioritization, Mr. Garg spoke about how the burden of Healthcare costs could be shared effectively between the public and private sectors. Finally, Dr. Yeldandi described the Healthcare dangers that rural India faces today and the risk that we face if those issues are not addressed in time. In summation, Dr. Balsari drew out the commonalities in the diverse points of view by saying that the field of Healthcare in India was similar to a blank sheet of paper. We have a long way to go with the chance to learn from the mistakes of other countries - and what we put down on that paper was up to people like the young and talented individuals sitting in the audience.

Entrepreneurship – Mr. Manoj Jain (Founder and Chairman, Pipal Research) stressed the importance of recruiting and retaining top talent within a startup while Dr. Adarsh Arora (CEO of Athena Security, President TiE Midwest, Founder charter member TiE) spoke about using and maintaining business and social networks for a successful business. The importance of maintaining you passion and following your dream was evident through Dr. Chirinjeev Kathuria’s (Serial entrepreneur, Founder Chairman PlanetSpace and Founder Director MirSpace Corp.) story as he told us about his many different ventures including his recent campaign for US Senate candidate of Illinios. Mr. Abhi Shah (CEO, Clutch Group – LPO firm) told us how thoughtfully he had put his advisory team together and that will definitely be an important lesson for any budding entrepreneur. Prof. Meadow closed the panel by discussing future growth opportunities in India in areas like education, healthcare and infrastructure.

 
Technology - The technology panel at the India Leadership Summit 2009 was setup to discuss the opportunities and challenges that lie ahead for India as it attempts to move up the value chain from an outsourcing hub to a center for technology innovation. The panel was moderated by Mr. Sanjay Puri (Head - Alliance for US India Business). The speakers were Dr. Shami Khorana (President - HCL Technologies America), Mr. Prithvi Gandhi (VP Corporate Development, Zebra technologies) and Mr. Rajeev Bahri, (Founder & Manading Director, TEKchand LLC).

 

The discussions centered around the panellist’s personal experiences working in India and the areas they felt India needed greater development in. One pertinent point that resonated with the audience was about innovation being driven by local demand and the next big IT product will come out of India would have to serve the local market for such a need.

 
Finance - The diverse backgrounds of the Finance panelists created an engaging discussion with varied viewpoints. Moderator Frank Schell – Ex MD of Private Bank and Prof of Harris School of Public Policy, University of Chicago touched upon topics ranging from deregulation, governance and liberalization. Manoj Varma – Senior VP CitiCards USA discussed Indian commercial banking including conservative remittance policies, domestic banks’ performance relative to foreign banks and the impact of the current crisis on Indian consumers. Prabhat Mehta – Partner, Sydley Austin LLP talked about the state of legal infrastructure in India, singling out important issues around de-regulatory measures. John Rompon from McNally Capital Partners suggested analyzing Indian private equity independent of western counterparts. He applauded India’s growth patterns and showed strong optimism regarding the future of the Indian private equity industry.