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Success story Russel Zaheer

He is all but 24, at the helm of Rs. 6 crore, ISO-9001 company and going great guns. Yes, Russell Zaheer is the executive director of Russell’s Institute of Spoken English Pvt. Ltd. which has 35 centres across five cities in the state and has a history of over two decades.

“We are into education business but with a difference. The fact that we have grown by leaps and bounds and have created a brand name in spoken language arena testifies to this. We are into need-based teaching and learning,” says the young boss emphatically.

Unlike his peers, Russell likes his work to speak for him rather than make sweeping statements of self-aggrandisement. What started as a brick and mortar institution has now metamorphosed into an enhanced learning centre with customized service modules to suit diverse clientele. “When I joined the group formally, I realised that we had to cater to varying learners. There are a whole lot of grannies who want to converse with their US, New Zealand, UK-born grandchildren who can speak only English! That’s the dichotomy. Not to speak of a host of educated boys and girls wanting to make it big in MNCs with perfect diction. I had to set my mind working to devise ways of learning and teaching where all of them get what they want and get it perfectly. Not everyone who knocks Russell’s door has time to attend classes and go through a schedule. This is where we thought a new model will work. We went ahead to launch the eLearning and distance learning modules. The latter was an instant hit,” Russel sums up his working style for you.

This graduate from Berkeley (International Marketing) University of California wanted to further hone his skills but was initially rejected by the ISB to do a course on the valid reason of being “too young”. In his own words, “I knew they’d get back to me which they did. And here I was last year rubbing shoulders with industry bigwigs doing a programme on “Managing teams.” It did make me feel good that my veteran class fellows were impressed by my performance scales.” A commerce graduate from Sainikpuri Bhavan’s, Russell had it in him to counsel at the age of 10. The institute was then being run by his mother Mukul Zahir.

“We want to take the process of learning to the doorstep of our learners. And we believe that learning English has a cascading effect on the entire personality in this fast track global village,” he signs off.

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