The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : A research-loving teacher

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Sep 12, 2005

Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

A research-loving teacher

T.R. Venkatesh

Director of ICFAI Business School T.R. Venkatesh loves being a financial analyst. He tells K. Satyamurty how it is more than just a career.

He is a man who loves teaching, research and writing, not necessarily in that order. One would imagine the work of a financial analyst to be as dry as dust, but T.R. Venkatesh, Director of Institute of Chartered Financial Analysts of India (ICFAI) Business School, finds it interesting enough to be more than just a career.

Having been with the B-school here right from its inception in 1995, Prof. Venkatesh has seen several graduating batches go on to occupy high positions in major corporate companies.

"Recently, I visited an office where I found nearly 25 executives were ICFAI students and we had an impromptu alumni meet there!" he said.

Providing academic training is one thing and giving graduating young men and women a kick-start in their career is something more.

This is where he finds the most satisfaction. Of course, the student's aptitude and inclinations do count.

At ICFAI, most MBA students now specialise either in financial management or marketing and they have to be matched with the right job and right potential employer by the time they don that academic "mortar board" cap. "Before they graduate, they would have spent a four month internship with a company and that gives enough time to learn what they are best suited for. We also have trained counsellors who interact with the students from the first semester itself," Prof. Venkatesh said.

In fact, the college has five trained Master in Psychology personnel, who act as counsellors, and four designated "soft skills" trainers. They get to know the students and after a lengthy personality profiling, understand what skills the young men and women have or need to acquire.

Interpersonal skills apart, many students also need language and writing skills.

During the training process, the different characteristics of individual students are taken note of.

"A few are extroverts and get along well with others, while a few other are good only on their own. They can digest 500 pages and prepare a report effortlessly but may not be able to make a presentation before a crowd. We have to find job profiles that match their personalities," he explained.

B-schools should have "book clubs" to make students return to the reading habit, he feels. Business newspapers and magazines now offer concessional subscriptions to students.

An internal evaluation of how well students read and assimilate the knowledge helps. Marketing students actually go out and work with brand building teams in the industry.

The students of first semester at ICFAI are encouraged to opt for combinations of subjects, which they may find useful in their planned careers. Often students also sit down with the faculty to assess how well they are doing.

"It all helps, because ultimately we have to `sell' the student to the industry," Prof. Venkatesh said.

His own interest in researching the evolution of the Indian financial market has certainly not taken a back seat.

His first book, Indian Financial Markets: An Introduction, has sold well and was quickly followed by Global Financial Markets: Changing Scenario and Financial Instruments. "I have tried to make the subject as interesting as possible for the lay reader too," he said.

He is now working on another book that will be called Regulators: An Evolution.

Researching for this book has given him valuable insights into how regulations and regulators have evolved over the years.

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