An online learning series, Term Zero, conducted by Great Lakes Institute of Management, Chennai, concluded earlier this month. Term Zero was conceptualised to support the current and incoming students to get insights and perspectives from the world’s best faculty and CXOs of leading Fortune 500 companies, globally. It is designed to enhance student preparedness within the scope of academic and placement preparation, says a press release from the B-school.
Industry-academia interactions
Term Zero kicked off in May with the Global Thought Leader series, which saw eminent academics from universities such as Yale, Harvard, Stanford, Northwestern and NYU, among others, conducting lectures on a number of topics from leadership, design thinking and innovation to valuation and the business of trust. The series ran alongside the CXO Connect, a series of webinars by globally renowned CXOs of leading companies such as Accenture, TCS and Infosys, who spoke about the issues that corporations and their employees face today and the ways in which they are working on overcoming these issues.
Women leaders
It also featured Great Lakes’ annual Successful Women in Management (SWIM) series which saw three icons of the corporate world — PepsiCo’s Indra Nooyi, Apollo Hospital Enterprise’s Preetha Reddy, and Biocon’s Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, address the students and talk about the challenges and tribulations they’ve faced as women in the corporate world.
Biocon’s Kiran Mazumdar Shaw spoke about crisis management and how women excel in handling crises. She lauded women politicians such as Jacinda Ardern, Prime Minister, New Zealand, and KK Shailaja, Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Kerala, who have managed to efficiently control the spread of coronavirus. Shaw’s lecture was followed by a session with TT Durai, former CEO, National Kidney Foundation, Singapore.
From the horse’s mouth
The final set of speaker talks were headlined by leaders from varied backgrounds, including sports, real estate and construction, healthcare and entertainment, who spoke about their experiences and interacted with the students.
N Srinivasan, Chairman and Managing Director, India Cements, and the owner of the IPL franchise, Chennai Super Kings, co-hosted a session with cricketing legend and former captain of the Indian team, Rahul Dravid. The panel discussion was on ‘Insights vs Instincts,’ which saw Dravid, in particular, discuss his experiences, both as a player and as a captain and what led him to make certain unconventional decisions in his career. This was followed by a session with the actor R Madhavan, of Alaipayuthey -fame, who spoke about his journey to the top.
The series concluded with a session by Vijay Govindarajan, Coxe Distinguished Professor, Dartmouth University's Tuck School of Business, and the author of Reverse Innovation, a New York Times bestseller. With the wrapping up of Term Zero, the students of Great Lakes are now well-prepared and geared up for the academic year, which commenced in the first week of August.