IIM Americas Newsletter Q4 '14

IIM Americas Newsletter IIM Americas is a 501(c)(6) not-for-profit organization

Q4 2014

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Vol. 4

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2014

Cover Photo: Second PAN IIM World Management Conference held @ IIMK

Editorial Hello fellow IIM Alumni, Greetings and a Happy New Year !!

It gives us immense pleasure to bring before you the fourth newsletter of IIM Americas. The objective of the newsletter is to be a platform where everybody gets a chance to interact with the

wider IIM alumni based in the Americas region.

As part of ‘Entrepreneurship’ series we interviewed Anil Pangulri, an alumnus of the Executive General Management Program of IIM B ‘09. Anil is Cofounder & CEO of Newbeat, an innovative news radio app where people can personalize what they

Sameer Mittal Editorial Team sameermittal85@gmail.com

get on their news radio. With thousands of breaking news stories everyday, listener get to hear what's interesting to them from high quality sources they trust.

In the Fun Company section of this edition we cover “Liquiglue”, it claims to be the first and only company to create permanently wet slippery surfaces. There is no other durable solution that makes viscous liquids slide easily.

If you know an IIM alum and feel we should interview him/her for the ‘Meet a thought leader’ section do write to us. The newsletter thrives on contributions from its members and

Deepti Thomas Editorial Team thomas.deepti@gmail.com

hence we request your active participation in this forum.

We hope that you enjoy this edition.

Thanks and Happy Reading !!

IIM Americas Editorial Team

Contents  Message from the President  My World : Being an Entrepreneur  Fun Company  Photo Gallery

 Chapter Contacts  Trivia  Nuts & Bolts  Campus Update  Life after IIMs

Aiming to build a stronger community network

Hello fellow alumni,

Message from the President

On behalf of the Board of IIM Americas, I wish you and your families a very happy and prosperous 2015. As we look back fondly on the year gone by, and look forward to another exciting year, I am delighted to share with you the highlights from 2014 and our plan of action for 2015.

Looking back…

In FY 2014, we organized a record number of events…14 events were held in different parts of the Americas including San Francisco-Bay Area, Houston, Dallas, Toronto, Chicago, Washington DC, Los Angeles, New York.

These events ranged from professional conferences to workshops to fireside chats to picnics and holiday parties.

For the first time, in addition to pictures we also recorded videos. Links to pictures and videos from our various events can be found at http://www.iimamericas.org/events.html.

We started the process of setting up the IIM Americas advisory board. Prof. Srikant Datar has agreed to join our advisory board.

We worked very hard to expand and solidify our footprint on the Internet. Check out the following: • Our website • Our LinkedIn group • Our Facebook group • Our Facebook page • Our YouTube channel • Our twitter handle @iimamericas

Ashima Jain President

Looking ahead…

Message from the President

2015 promises to be yet another an exciting year for us. We have several activities and initiatives already planned for this year, with many more in the pipeline. Some of our focus areas are going to be as follows: • Expanding the IIM Americas Advisory Board (please send your suggestions for Advisory Board members to ashima.jain@gmail.com) • Enhancing the IIM Americas Entrepreneurship group (please send your suggestions to sud.abhishek@gmail.com) • Planning webcasts that feature accomplished alumni (please send your suggestions for accomplished alumni to ashima.jain@gmail.com) • Organizing professional and social events in various chapters all year round • Intensifying outreach to IIM alumni in the Americas (please sign up on our LinkedIn and Facebook groups and “like” our Facebook page) • Publishing quarterly newsletters (please let our editorial team know if you would like to contribute articles to our newsletter) Events planned for first half of 2015: We have planned the following professional events in the first half of 2015: • Impulse 2015 – Annual meet @Houston, February 28, 2015 (you can find more details and can register here) • Summit 2015 – Conference @Chicago, March 28, 2015 • Pinnacle 2015 – Conference @San Francisco/Bay Area, April, 2015 • IIMpact 2015 – Conference @Dallas, May 2, 2015 • IIMages 2015 – Conference @Toronto, May/June 2014 Stay tuned for announcements and information about our forthcoming initiatives!

With best wishes On behalf of IIM Americas board

Ashima Jain (President)

My World : Being an Entrepreneur Anil Panguluri: Co-founder and CEO, Newsbeat

I landed in the Bay Area for my master's studies right after my B.Tech, and started my career in Silicon Valley during the dot-com boom. My first job was in a small startup, building web-based collaboration solutions. We were way too early to market, but it was a great way to learn what it takes to build a business. After the dot-com bust, I took on a more 'regular' job as a Product Manager (perhaps because I wasn't confident I could be a good enough engineer!) As a product manager I worked with a number of organizations of varying sizes, on a range of products.

However all along, I was always working on side projects – looking for an idea whose

time may have come, and one that I had the skills to execute. I am personally a news junkie, and the idea of what ultimately became Newsbeat excited me. Newsbeat lets people listen to news stories from popular websites and newspapers of their choice.

It's an alternative to the good old radio as a source of personalized, informative news while people commute, exercise, or go about their daily lives. I had learnt a lot about building consumer products at Yahoo, and was confident that it was the right idea for me, and it was the right time for the idea.

My journey as an entrepreneur has been a great learning experience, one that provided me with a lot of 'firsts'. I get to do a lot of things that I have never done before, am learning new skills daily, and overcoming some self-doubt. Each day is different - there’s the big rush that accompanies small wins and the expected lows of failure – but there’s never a dull day.

While working in a start-up is grunt work, for the most part it is an exciting experience when you are building things that you truly believe in! What makes it even better working with

people who are equally passionate about your vision, and people whom you can trust.

Personally, I am fortunate to be working with a great group of people - especially my cofounder, John Yeh. When I think about my experience founding and running a start-up, the closest analogy I can come up with is the final scene in ‘Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade’, where Dr. Jones has to walk on air to reach a cave that has the chalice. To me, the start-up experience is like that. You have to trust that your instincts are right, and that when you do take that step off that mountain side – an invisible bridge will materialize. And amazingly enough, for those that do dare to take that step that bridge does materialize more often than you'd expect!

That being said, to take such a risk - passion for the idea is a must. And this could serve as a good litmus test too – would you invest half of your salary as investment in the startup?

Another piece of advice - sell the product first, build it later!

Anil Pangulri is an alumnus of the Executive General Management Program of IIM

Bangalore – Batch of 2009. You can connect with Anil at vap@stanfordalumni.org

‘Fun company’ !!!

A ‘fun business micro-blog’ by Tarun Mehra (CEO, Fuld Omniscope and Board Member, IIM Americas)

For this issue of ‘fun company’ I looked around a fair bit. The challenge was not that I

couldn’t find any fun companies, but actually quite the opposite. There are a lot of them all around here in Boston (where I live) where new fun companies get launched and make news all the time.

On October 31st 2014, 12 MIT-affiliated startups (out of 128 accepted for MIT’s accelerator program) that participated in 2014 MassChallenge (www.masschallenge.org), took home prizes ranging from $10K to $100K. In its five year history, MassChallenge has helped

launch a number of MIT spinouts. I found one of these firms, LiquiGlide (www.liquiglide.com), really interesting for a variety of reasons (one of which maybe the fact that I had the opportunity to interact with company’s founders several months back!).

So, here are a few details about the company – Name – LiquiGlide (www.liquiglide.com) Industry – Material Sciences, Coatings, Industrial Products (with applications across many different customer industries) Mission – ‘To change the way all liquids flow’

*IIM Americas does not intend to endorse this company in any regards

‘Fun company’ !!!

What does the company do – The company claims to be the first and only company to create permanently wet slippery surfaces. There is no other durable solution that makes viscous liquids slide easily.

Patented technology, with an ever-growing IP portfolio, enabling the development of a vast

array of custom-designed, liquid-impregnated coatings.

What’s interesting about the company – Viral Videos - They got really popular when one of their YouTube videos went viral overnight (they have since come out with many different videos (http://liquiglide.com/videos/) Employees - grew from 3 employees to 20 employees within first year of its operations

Clients - over 30 paying clients globally currently + advanced licensing conversations ongoing Products – First commercial products with LiquiGlide coatings to appear in store shelves in 2015 (likely – toothpaste, mayonnaise and lotion) In the News – The company has been covered by several industry journals, channels and magazines (http://liquiglide.com/news/) Unusual – LiquiGlide is not your usual B2C/ Consumer/Tech startup (aren’t we all tired of hearing about them!). Personally, I found it a lot of fun to see something interesting come up in an unusual space.

*IIM Americas does not intend to endorse this company in any regards

Photo Gallery

Prof. Ashish Nanda, Director IIM Ahmedabad with US President Barack Obama and Indian President Pranab Mukherjee at the Indian State Dinner hosted at the Rashtrapati Bhavan on January 25th, 2015

Photo Gallery New York & New Jersey Year End Holiday Party 2014

Photo Gallery San Francisco / Bay Area Holiday Party 2014

Photo Gallery IIMpower 2014, October 18, ’14, Culver City, CA

Contacts Atlanta Austin

·

Ketan Kumar

kumar.ketan@gmail.com

·

Kulbir Singh

skulbir@gmail.com

·

Ajat Dhawal

ajat.dhawal@gmail.com

·

Budhaditya (Adi) Gupta

budha.gupta@gmail.com

·

Navjeet Singh

navjeet@townisp.com

·

Ranganathan Chandrasekaran

Boston

Chicago

cranganathan@gmail.com

·

Anil Maheshwari

akm2030@gmail.com

·

Akhila Rey

akhila_rey@yahoo.com

Dallas

·

Sanjeev Bode

esanjeev_2000@yahoo.com

Houston

·

Mohan Natarajan

mnatarajan1@yahoo.com

·

Sandeep Walia

sandeep.walia@ignify.com

·

Nagam Rao

nagamrao@gmail.com

·

Prakash Grama

Prakash.grama@gmail.com

·

Amita Nagananda

amita_nagananda@hotmail.com

New York / New Jersey

·

Amit Kohad

akohad@pershing.com

Phoenix

·

Uday Patki

upatki@gmail.com

San Francisco / Bay Area

·

Hari Katla

Los Angeles

Seattle

Toronto

Washington DC

·

Sudha Ranganathan

hari.katla@gmail.com sudha.ranganathan@gmail.com

·

Prof. Shailendra

Jainspjain@u.washington.edu

·

Suyash Lad

suyash.lad@gmail.com

·

Deepak Singh

deepak.iiml@gmail.com

·

Arpita Agarwal

arpita.agarwal@iiml.org

·

Vivek Deenadayalu

vivek.deen@gmail.com

·

Tarun Sen

tksen1@gmail.com

·

Anil Chandramani

achandramani@gmail.com

This is the updated list of our various chapters and the respective Chapter Contacts. If you’d like to volunteer or get involved in any way, please feel free to contact the relevant people.

trivia

DOWN

ACROSS 2 Which computer company uses the advertising slogan 'Where do you want to go today?', up to 2006

1 _______ Times in 1893 tinted its pages in a distinctive shade of salmon pink to distinguish itself from rivalry.

4 In India, the Phiroze Jeejeebhoy Towers is home to which Stock Exchange?

6 Which country voted on a referendum in September

3 _______ was the first company to live tweet 2014 to become independent of United Kingdom? its earnings call

7 Ursula M. Burns is the first African-American woman

5 Disney acquired Lucasfilm for nearly USD CEO to head a Fortune 500 company. Which Fortune 500 4.05 Billion in 2012. Which movie series associated with Lucasfilm do they plan to release company are we referring to? in 2015?

8 Who argues in "Capitalism and Freedom" that government, despite good intentions, often did more harm 7 This company overtook Uber to become the world’s most valuable technology startup in than good upon entering the economic arena, and December, 2014. therefore should stay out of it whenever possible?

9 Which retail chain started as a baby furniture shop set up by Charles Lazarus in Washington DC?

10 What was first developed by Bayer in 1898 from morphine and was originally used as a narcotic analgesic?

11 This company recently launched the first regulated US based Bitcoin Exchange

11 Apple’s OS X operating system upgrades until 10.9 were often referred to by their “Big Cat” nicknames.

What type of Cat was the first version associated with?

14 An online personal cloud content 12 Which company is named after the Greek management service for businesses went public goddess of victory? in January, 2015.

15 Monetary policy conducted under the assumption of a _______ involves allowing just enough unemployment in the economy to prevent inflation rising above a given target figure

13 The ________ East India Company (aka Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie, VOC) is often considered to be the first multinational corporation in the world and it was the first company to issue stock.

Nuts & Bolts

Opportunities for Sponsorships

Block Your Calendar • Impulse 2015 – Annual meet

Thank you all for the continued support

@Houston, February 28, 2015 (you

towards your IIM alma mater and

can find more details and can

energized participation in alumni

register here)

activities and events.

As we are all well aware, IIM Americas is a non-profit organization, and sponsorship is a key source of sustenance towards meeting our objectives. Obtaining sponsorship for ongoing activities and/or specific

events is a continuous journey and your help in every way is much appreciated.

• Summit 2015 – Conference @Chicago, March 28, 2015 • Pinnacle 2015 – Conference @San Francisco/Bay Area, April, 2015 • IIMpact 2015 – Conference @Dallas, May 2, 2015 • IIMages 2015 – Conference @Toronto, May/June 2014

If you have contacts and/or leads and would like to help with obtaining

Stay Tuned to

sponsorship, please reach out to Jayant

http://www.iimamericas.org/events.ht

Swamy, IIM Americas Board member

ml to learn about more events.

(jnswamy@hotmail.com) who is championing this effort for 2014.

Campus update

Strengthening India-US Relations through Higher Education Brookings Institution The few IITs (Indian Institute of Technology) and IIMs (Indian Institute of Management) are centres of excellence in teaching but have low research ...

Nabard inks pact with IIM-A to research rural agriculture Economic Times Nabard today said it has signed an MoU with the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, to set up a Chair to encourage research in ...

Foundation stone laid for IIMVisakhapatnam Greatandhra.com Union Human Resources Development Minister Smriti Irani Saturday laid the foundation stone for the Indian Institute of Management ...

IIM- Ahmedabad ties up with three corporates for research Economic Times Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad today announced a tie-up with three corporate houses -- CRISIL, ATS Infra and SAP -- for ...

Aviation Management Programme at IIMB The Hindu ... an aviation management program was launched in the Indian Institute of Management (Beng aluru) along with Toulouse Business School, France.

Know more about India's new Finance Secy Hasmukh Adhia - an IIM gold medallist, PhD in Yoga Oneindia A post graduate degree in accounting and a gold medallist from Indian Institute ofManagement, Ahmedabad, Adhia is at present a member of the ...

Indian Institute of Management Bangalor e in tie-ups for women's leadership plan Economic Times IBM has collaborated with The Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore (IIM-B) and Catalyst India WRC to launch a cross-industry women's ...

Nagpur wins battle for first IIM, Pune gets promise of 'next ...

The Indian Express Education hub Pune has lost the race for the first IIM in the state. State Education Minister Vinod Tawde Wednesday announced in the .

Life After IIMS Ishu (Arun Isukapalli) is an IIM - I '07 graduate who infrequently blogs at http://theishu.wordpress.com. He is a Business Analysis Manager near Washington, DC.

trivia- solution

www.iimamericas.org