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A happening homecoming
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Nooraine Fazal had two per cent attendance in college and is now CEO of Inventure Academy, a new school that will be a confluence of the conventional and the modern
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— Photo: Bhagya Prakash K.
Nooraine Fazal: `Our focus will be on integrity and inclusiveness, nurturing inventive thinking and training children in soft skills at the primary level.'
SHE BELIEVES there are only two certainties in life — taxes and death. Nooraine Fazal believes in working backward (from the deathbed).
" I always think that when I'm on my deathbed, what would I have achieved? I don't have a big plan, but... " when she crisply cuts her sentence there and breaks into a grin that lights up her face, she may sound very modest, but her career, drive and focus has been dazzling since her teenage years. And yes, there always was some plan.
Her CV sounds like every management student's dream — an MBA from Boston University, nine years with Reuters in frontline sales management positions, taking Reuters to the number one spot as an online content syndicator, setting up their venture capital site, plush positions in the Asia Pacific, U.A.E. and Australia, starting off her own company and now setting up an international school. What lies ahead is anybody's guess.
The dynamic scion of the Fazal family (her father owns the Fazal's clothing store and mother Nafees Fazal is an MLC and former science and technology minister) started real young. Summer vacations at 19 were spent at political meetings with her mother, visiting slums, and co-ordinating with a network of 30 people to run the family's Pepsi distribution agency, and their real-estate business. Phew!
Learning hands-on
While doing her B.Com at Mount Carmel College, she captained the cricket team, played basketball for the State team, and was a member of the student union, taking responsibility for raising sponsorships for the college fest. "In that sense, college education was tremendous. Otherwise, I was never a great one for attending class. There wasn't much to learn in class. We weren't encouraged to question. I only had two per cent attendance all through and still got a first class! It tells us so much about our education system that's based on mugging," says the athletic Nooraine who would read anything in her textbook thrice and remember even the page it was on!
And it is perhaps this education system with its lacunae that has prompted her now to don the suit as CEO of Inventure Academy, an international primary and secondary school that throws open its doors to kids in Bangalore this July. It will be a mix of conventional and modern schooling with a more intimate interaction between student and teacher.
"Our focus will be on integrity and inclusiveness, nurturing inventive thinking and training children in soft skills at the primary level," says Nooraine.
She had this experience of an entirely different education system when she studied for her masters in management at Boston.
"While we were tested here for theory, there we were tested for our understanding and team work. Theory is good, but you need to reinforce it in practice. My real-life case study where I did a market research on shampoos in the market gave me confidence to go out into the industry," says this 34-year-old. She's travelled and worked in 20 countries, made international sales pitches and come out trumps.
"But nothing could beat the pressure I faced during my ISCE board exams for 10th grade!" she insists. She describes herself as a yoga freak, and a bit of a nerd who wakes up and sleeps watching news.
When she quit Reuters in 2001, it was with great disappointment that the company had no interest in China and India, the two economies, Nooraine believed, that were world leaders along with the U.S.
"My most challenging task at Reuters was to convince them to make investments in India at a time when the stock markets boomed and then crashed," says Nooraine. The day after she quit, she went on a skiing holiday. After taking a year off and travelling to South America, Brazil and a dozen other countries, and learning to play golf, the entrepreneurial streak in her was triggered off. She set up a company of her own for Indo-U.S. and Indo-China technology transfers. The company would test products, shrinking time and costs that a product normally takes to go from the idea to the market stage.
"It was at this time that I interacted with American universities and sparked off the idea to start a similar business school in India where students would develop products for the global market as part of their training. It is very important for India to develop intellectual property."
But the idea ran into rough weather on regulatory issues. She is confident though, that the school will eventually take shape.
Never in her worldwide work experience did she face any discrimination on nationality, she says. But when it comes to gender discrimination, it's a very fine line. "It's a matter of using it to your advantage. I was able to close deals my male colleagues weren't able to!" she shrugs.
Going away from India was what she considered an opportunity to broaden her horizons and the desire to be accepted for what she was rather than her background, which would have loomed large on her, if she had stayed home. What brought her back home though was all the talk and TV ads across the BBC of "India Shining".
"I wasn't quite so sure about that. But the country was at the crossroads, deciding between becoming a secular, democratic, outward-looking one or a more inward-looking one, where communalism would be a worrying factor. I wanted to participate in the decision of what India will be in the future," says Nooraine trying to put her finger on the reason for her return. "But the first time communalism really worried me was when Ayodhya happened and I was asked my religion at the Customs! I couldn't understand that."
The young dashing woman, very much in control of her life, believes India has a lot of work to do to become a superpower. "We need to take more control of our destinies and our lives."
For someone who describes herself as single and footloose, she says coming back to India now, when her parents are growing older, was easier. "Otherwise I could be in any part of the world, doing anything. Maybe playing professional golf! I don't know."
Nooraine Fazal can be contacted on nfazal@inventureacademy.com
Daily Bread features people who pursue their beliefs and choose not be part of the ho-hum and humdrum.
BHUMIKA K.
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