The past two years have introduced us to a new, complex, highly competitive and fast-moving international environment where businesses have seen a massive shift in the industry, in their very own operations and in the way they interact with their stakeholders. This shift has created a compelling urgency among businesses to reinvent themselves and generated a pressing demand for business leaders who have the expertise to understand the challenges, agility to respond quickly and the creativity to find responsible and sustainable solutions to them.

Realizing the need for such dynamic leaders and entrepreneurs, the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad (IIMA) has redesigned its globally acclaimed One Year Postgraduate Program for Executives, popularly referred to as PGPX. This programme is for mid-career executives who have the drive to go forward and are ready for an academically rigorous curriculum that offers real-world insights, global orientation, and skills to adapt to a fast-changing world. PGPX aims at producing effective management professionals, entrepreneurs, and responsible citizens by fostering creativity, critical thinking, communication, strategic thinking, and sharp analytic skills to develop trained, principled, innovative leaders who can impact the industry and the world meaningfully.

Students are expected to put in relentless efforts towards their study. The predominant pedagogical tool at IIMA, namely the case method, also provides students avenues to apply their conceptual learnings to real-life problems. This is how the motto of IIMA – Vidya Viniyogad Vikasah (development through application of knowledge) – comes alive in our classroom.

Candidates come from a wide variety of industries in their prior work experience, including defence, oil and natural gas, energy, IT and IT services, automobiles, electronics, education, aviation, agriculture, healthcare, finance, government agencies, food processing, etc. This diversity in the class enhances peer-to-peer learning and inculcates the spirit of inquiry cutting across various disciplines.

This thought process has reflected in our placements too; regardless of the pandemic, placements registered impressive figures year on year, with our students being at the helm of global organisations, making significant contributions as managers, CXOs, thought leaders, etc. We have also had the opportunity to groom visionary entrepreneurs who have gone on to start their own enterprises very successfully.

As the chairperson of this program, I feel extremely confident that the students will go on to add significant value to the organizations across the spectrum and make a mark for themselves in the world!

Viswanath Pingali
Chairperson, MBA PGPX