XLRI Address of The 50th Convocation on 2nd April 2006

Mr. AM Naik, Chairman and M.D of Larson and Toubro, Mr. Subir Raha, Chairman of ONGC, the worthy recipient of this year’s Sir Jehnagir Gandhi medal for industrial peace.

My colleagues Fr. Casmir Raj and P. Venugopal, members of the board, faculty, students, their proud parents, ladies and gentleman.

Congratulations to the graduating students and wishing them success in their lives.

Life is about learning, you have learnt “concepts” in the institute and you will shortly face the “context” in which you will apply the concepts you have learnt here. Learning comes from experiences and from the learnings of leaders who have had “experiences” and learning comes from action and introspection.

Today you have the opportunity to hear two outstanding Corporate Leaders - Mr. A.M. Naik, Chairman and M.D of Larsen and Toubro and Mr. Subir Raha, Chairman of ONGC. In my view they are the two best and most outstanding Corporate Leaders of India today. They are engaged in creating wealth for the nation. They are engaged in converting raw materials into nations wealth by leadership and by knowledge. They are both in the core manufacturing industry, that is fundamental to the development of India. Agriculture and Manufacturing are the two fundamental wealth creators of India and they are the reason for the flourish of services telephone and IT. Both Mr. Naik and Subir Raha are role models for every young executive. I do sincerely hope that youngsters like you follow the footsteps of people like Mr. Nair and Mr. Raha and choose professions that matter to India and not professions that matters to you alone and that too in a transient manner.

Since all of you have got your jobs already, this is not going to help you but hopefully you will think about these, when you go about choosing your second job.

As you go out of the portals of this institute, you will face many challenges and have a variety of experiences. Please do think of India and try your best to ensure that the organization you work for cares for the welfare of all stakeholders and most of all society. You need to help change the current trends where some of the best minds of India, like you, are beginning to choose softer jobs in preferences to careers that involve hard work, sacrifice and those that will make a difference to India. You need to change the current perception of judging industrial corporations by financial measures alone and bring in the concept of Total Returns to the Society as the yardstick to measure and judge Industrial Corporation. Do think about these since they are fundamental to the Development of India.