Rajesh is from PFM 95-97. He is currently an academic explorer/faculty at IIM Kozhikode. Loves interacting with diversity of audiences on management practices and dwells into bridging the gaps between theory and practice.
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rajesh-upadhyayula-b004198/
Q. How has been your journey from IIFM to this role?
A. Hey, thanks for profiling me among the IIFM Profiles. Rishi is quite persuasive. It’s been a roller coaster ride and continues to be so. While I have seen many profiles which talk about road less travelled, mine was a regular road taken (already taken by seniors). However, I had my own set of interesting accidents as part of the journey. I graduated from IIFM in the year 1997. I have moved across three distinct kind of profiles. I joined RUDA (Rural Non-Farm Development Agency), a Government of Rajasthan organized society (GONGO) that acts as a support to Non Farm Sector (1997-2000) (https://industries.rajasthan.gov.in/content/industries/ruda.html). Post which, I did my FPM from IIM Ahmedabad (2000-2005). After FPM, I joined as an Assistant Consultant with Tata Consultancy Services (2005-2010) for setting up their Market and Competitive Intelligence Unit before moving back into academia at IIM Kozhikode (2010-till now). All of them had provided me an understanding of different facets. It also helped in meeting great people (team members – true friends) and extraordinary minds (leaders) from whom I learned significantly.
Q. What were some of the key milestones/learning in this journey that you would like to share with us?
A. After IIFM, I remember that I could not land up with a job during the placement season. It was sheer luck (they selected engineers) because of which I could land up with a job in a Micro-enterprise support firm started by Government of Rajasthan. It’s called Rural Non-Farm Development Agency (RUDA) at Jaipur. RUDA definitely made me understand that Government can actually deliver better if it can make substantial effort towards the vision. We had good leadership/mentorship (Mr Vipin Sharma, Founder, Access Development Services was General Manager at RUDA) who dreamt for the country and merged it with direction, devotion and discipline. Meetings with Mr Vijay Mahajan every quarter (on the Board of RUDA during that period – alongside Road side dhabas of Jaipur) was truly a humbling experience.
Despite these significant experiences, I was getting restless owing to the policy issues that we face while promoting enterprise development in rural areas. One of the studies that we did was for UNIDO on clusters. However, RUDA was primarily an implementation partner with limited policy influence despite being in the Government. This made me realize the importance of educating myself further. Mr Vipin and Mr Mahajan were suggesting me to go abroad. However, I had significant scars already during my journey on study abroad earlier. Hence, I chose to write CAT and apply for the FPM programme (Some of our illustrious seniors Prof P D Jose, Prof R Srinivasan, both at IIMB and Prof Amar Saxena at IIM Amritsar already travelled this road) at IIMA. I enrolled for my Fellow Programme in Management in the Year 2000. While I initially planned to work on rural enterprises and policy, things took a detour again. My Professor (Prof Rakesh Basant) in economics was already working on industrial clusters. The focus was on IT and electronics. I submitted and defended my thesis in 2005. Luck would have it, no IIM at that time was recruiting. I even had a reject from IIM Kozhikode!
While applying for other jobs, I chanced to meet (Late) Mr Jayant Pendharkar, Head of Global Marketing and Vice-President, Tata Consultancy Services and Mr Ananth Krishnan, Chief Technology Officer. TCS at that time was looking for someone who can start their Sales and Competitive Intelligence Unit. Luck would have it that owing to my thesis, he offered me a role. I led the practice and became a support executive of the Think Tank (The top management strategy unit) at TCS between 2005-2010. However, one cannot do strategy for a very long time which is primarily a support to execution. I was already sharing my experiences with students at XLRI and Loyola Institute of Business Administration as an academic. TCS (primarily Mr Jayant, Mr Vish Iyer and Mr Ananth Krishnan) kept my academic sprits alive by allowing me to do these pursuits. Ofcourse, closely watching academics such as Prof Pankaj Ghemawat (at that time with HBS and consulting TCS) helped me take the plunge into academia. I applied again to IIM Indore and IIM Kozhikode. While I was offered by both, IIM Kozhikode offered me a full-time position. I became a student full time again. It’s been nearly 13 years that I am with IIM Kozhikode and the journey of learning is becoming even better now.
Q. What is the most satisfying part of your current role?
A. While academia in general offers a significant amount of freedom, academic roles at an early stage have significant pressure. Academics are measured at four levels: Teaching, Training and Consulting, Research output and Academic administration. Given that I am a tenured professor, one can start exploring even more. Looking at how to distill contextualized experiences of managers to frame it back, develop and refine the theory / frameworks excites me a lot. One of the great researcher’s (Prof Karl Weick) calls it disciplined imagination. Honing my imagination in this manner is the pursuit I am currently in, which could also be the most satisfying part (as Gardener puts it in the book “The pursuit of happyness”).
Q. Has your learning at IIFM helped in shaping how you approach your professional roles?
A. Learning from IIFM happened at multiple levels.
- I got to see great-committed teachers such as Prof Rathore, Prof M Ravisundar, Prof Pethiya, Prof Madhu Verma, Prof Biswas, Prof Parul Rishi, Prof Suparva Patnaik, Prof R R Shukla, Prof Majumdar and many more. We were blessed. I was never good at Forestry aspects though. This realization helped me choose an appropriate trajectory.
- IIFM is the first place which teaches you to manage your time across a variety of activities. More importantly, IIFM at that time enabled you catch up with a lot of how outside world/industry/field syncs with the class room (IIFM had brief field visits, major field visits, and two trainings). It helped you bring class room closer to practice always which was not as much atleast at other B-schools in 1990’s.
- It enabled you to make very distinctive choices (Development versus Industry) even at that time. Hence, picking up trajectories that are distinctly different or experimenting was never difficult even now.
- I picked up Hindi as a language thanks to my classmates, seniors and ofcourse juniors!
Q. Who (or what) are the biggest influences or drivers in your careers? What would be your advice to freshers and IIFM graduates who are looking to choose similar sectors/roles.
A. I have already mentioned about the biggest influencers of my career. Many of my batch mates, seniors, juniors did influence me too. Even now one of my batch mates Ms. Jaya Roy helps us all stay connected. She is an influencer for helping us stay connected. It’s the way she makes the effort that I have to still learn and develop.
Get surrounded with great and passionate individuals always. This helps in keeping your learning quotient high. Apart from the same, every individual context is different.
Q. What are your favorite memories during your IIFM days?
A. Lots and Lots of memories: Right from the first day. I was put in a hostel where girls were there on the top floor (Seniors) and us on the ground floor! Engineering hostels has lot of separation between girls and boys hostels. You should be careful about the attire and a whole lot of other things. Sensitization was the first learning.
First roomie, Suneel who came into IIFM with a focus on working with watershed programmes and excelled. Achieving focus is helpful.
Having a party till late night and preparing for a presentation at 4 AM to present at 9 AM in the class room!
Babu who left the programme mid way was instrumental in getting everyone together so thankful to him.
Trips for buying vegetables to the Sabji mandi in the first year in the Jugaad vehicles of Bhopal.
Trips to Madhuram every evening for samosas, dahi and jalebis with a whole lot of batch mates, seniors and juniors Sridhar, Tanmay, Rahul, Navendu, Devabrat, Shailesh, Devesh, Ashwini, Jaya (all classmates), Suresh Babu, ADP Madhavan, Archana, Ramanathan, Biswadeep, Seema, Ashish, Madhu (all seniors), Shakeb, Devanshu, Rajiv Gupta, Bhaskar, Vivek, Rati and many more (all juniors).
Whole lot of GBMS around placements, OTs, etc. GBMs were good fun as you can see arguments and counter argument. The argumentative indian in me developed by observing other batch mates especially Atulya, Parijat and Suneel.
Buying the first party musical player that used to play at Bamboosa in second year along with Reddy, Tanmay, Navendu, Rahul and don’t know who else contributed.
Q. In hindsight, what was the biggest contribution (courses, faculty, library, friends, alumni.. Anything else!!) or take away from IIFM that you think played a critical role in shaping you as an individual or professional?
A. I do not think I visited library as much. I was quite disciplined (regular) in my course, especially at class room and that was enough (Learnt it from Mukul, now a IFS and Professor at IGNFA Dehradun – who was quite attentive in the class room. The only difference was that Mukul never carried a book. I was always with a note pad).
Q. The best buddies / seniors /faculty at IIFM? Some memorable tidbits that you like to share?
A. I do not want to repeat. Since the batch size was small, there was always a very good one to one interaction with each one of the junior, senior and our batch. No best buddies. I was definitely closer to a few than others. However, over a period of two years, we could actually get to know about each other well.
Among faculty, Prof Rathore played a big role in his devotion to the class room. Prof Madhu Verma, Prof Ravisundar, Prof KK, Prof Biswas, and others on how to conduct yourself with students even outside the class room.
Q. What is your typical day at the office?
A. Academics do not have typical days. We are the ones who have seven-day week atleast in India. Most of us teach / train on both weekdays and weekends. However, we also conduct research, does lot of voluntary work for academic societies, read, pretend to guide, etc.
Q. And how about weekends, Hobbies, Family and anything else you want to add
A. I reside with my family at the Kampus (as IIMK students call).
Q. Favorite Books, movies, authors
A. I read a variety of books and authors. From Minhaz Merchant (the clash of civilizations), Amartya Sen (Argumentative Indian, An Uncertain Glory to Satya Nadella, Hit Refresh)
Q. As an alumni, what’s your advice to freshers or those are joining IIFM to get best out of the 2 years there?
A. A few pointers from my side :
- Enjoy your stay at the campus
- Try different things
- Do everything with a open mind.
Q. IIFM is driven by alumni’s passion and commitments towards its goal. How would you like to contribute to IIFM or IIFM alumni, students?
A. As the institute and the body deems fit.
Q. What do you think is different at IIFM now vs when you studied there? What do you think is a positive change and what is not?
A. I am not aware. Have not visited the campus since I graduated. Not sure If I understand IIFM in its current form.
Q. Any suggestions on who you want to get profiled/interviewed here?
A. Provided quite a few names amongst my batch to Rishi. Infact all my batch mates, seniors and juniors. Everyone is living an exemplary journey of their own. No specifics here. Looking forward to a batch reunion during the 25th year of our graduation from IIFM.