“If India is to become a globally respected nation, it has to be through the power of education and this can happen only if we nurture high-quality leaders,” says Anil Sachdev, founder and CEO of the Gurgaon-based School of Inspired Leadership (SOIL, estb.2009) — a unique business school focusing on leadership training. Sachdev has undertaken a national mission to develop value-based leadership within the younger generation.

An educationist with a deep commitment to promoting ethical education, during the past 15 years Sachdev has served as faculty with the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad; Kelly School of Business of Indiana University; General Motors Institute of Technology, Flint Michigan; and Antioch, Seattle and Ohio universities.

Newspeg. On August 12, Sachdev unveiled a new SOIL programme under which the institute will directly support students who opt to work with any of 25 approved NGOs after graduating from SOIL. Under the scheme, students who choose to work in NGOs and whose annual remuneration is less than the average of SOIL graduates will be compensated to the extent of the differential up to a sum of Rs.5 lakh per year. Therefore if a student signs up with an NGO which pays Rs.3 lakh per annum, SOIL will pay her the balance sum of Rs.2 lakh.

Direct speech. “There is a leadership crisis in India which the country’s estimated 4,000 B-schools are only partially addressing. The overwhelming majority of them are narrowly focused on developing business leaders whereas India needs leaders with character, competence and enthusiasm in all walks of life. Therefore this scheme will encourage SOIL graduates to work with organisations in the voluntary sector,” says Sachdev. In the academic year 2011-12, SOIL graduated 77 MBAs all of whom were placed in industry with annual salary packages ranging between Rs.7.5-9.5 lakh.

History. A business management graduate of Pune University, Sachdev began his career in Tata Motors in 1975. Three years later, he joined the Gurgaon-based Eicher Group as head of human resources and was the prime mover behind Eicher Consulting Services (ECS, estb. 1991). After ECS scaled up as a nationally reputed consultancy company, in 2001, Sachdev promoted Eicher’s Gurgaon-based Grow Talent Company Ltd which grew to become a leader in HRD consulting.

Eight years later after ECS had chalked up an annual revenue of Rs.20 crore, Sachdev chased his own dream by setting up SOIL — a leadership development school funded by an industry consortium including corporates such as Infosys, Aditya Birla Group, Bharat Petroleum, Hindustan Unilever, Mahindra, Tata Steel and Dr. Reddy’s Labs who contributed Rs.25 crore towards the school’s corpus and also consented to add value to curriculum design, review the quality of teaching and commission industry research.

Future plans. Within two years since it admitted its first batch of 120 students on its 30,000 sq. ft. campus, SOIL has acquired an excellent reputation as a B-school with a difference. “We need leaders in all walks of life — not merely in industry and business. SOIL is showing the way,” says Sachdev.

Lead on!

Praveer Sinha (Mumbai)