IIM Ahmedabad: Building enterprise

Ahmedabad, Dec. 28: He was 33 when he topped one of the toughest tests in the country. Now 35, the former armyman has turned down what many would see as the ultimate — a salary of Rs 1 crore.

Eccentric genius?

No, plain enterprising. Devashish Chakravarty wants to do something on his own before he gets too old.

“That is why,” says the second-year postgraduate programme student of IIM Ahmedabad, “I took premature retirement from the army after 13 years of service.”

Chakravarty, who topped the Common Admission Test in 2004, was among six second-year postgraduate students from the management institute who were offered posts of associates by Deutsche Bank, considered to be a protected domain of graduates of top B-schools from Europe and the US.

But he politely declined the offer, the highest so far to an IIM student.

So did Vineeta Singh, a 23-year-old fellow student who, too, was offered an annual package of Rs 1 crore based on their performance during their summer internship in the London and New York offices of Deutsche Bank in June.

Chakravarty and Vineeta are set to start their garment business — women’s inner-wear production and retailing — along with two other IIM-A students, Bhushan Dabir and Vishal Prabhukhanolkar, both in their 20s.

But why lingerie?

The decision, Vineeta explains, was taken after a detailed survey. “We found that there is a huge market for women’s inner wear because customers are dissatisfied with western-style products which do not suit Indian women. They don’t feel comfortable.”

“So, we want to Indianise lingerie to suit the requirement of Indian women,” says Chakravarty, an electrical engineer by training. “If everything goes well, we will hit the market next year.”

Does he think he should have taken the plunge earlier? Pat comes the reply from the former major. “I lived a very adventurous life,” he says, “and enjoyed every bit of it.”

Vineeta’s parents had been initially sceptical. But now, she says, they support her decision which they had earlier dismissed as “childish”.

“Now they think I have taken the right decision to plunge instead of wasting time. But it was not an easy decision. Many thought I was stupid and tried to discourage me,” says the aspiring entrepreneur who did her B.Tech from Chennai before joining IIM-A.

IIM-A spokesman Ashok Shah says one reason why several students are declining job offers to become entrepreneurs is they have good work experience. They are more confident and know what they want to do. “It is a good sign as IIM-A has often been criticised for not producing entrepreneurs.”