ICFAI awards degrees to 1,047 students

‘Dream big, be paranoid about success; but stick to your values’ — this was the advice that BVR Mohan Reddy imparted to a sea of students when he addressed them at the fifth convocation of the ICFAI Foundation for Higher Education (IFHE), ICFAI Group. This took place on Friday, at Shilpakala Vedika, in Hyderabad, where 1,047 students were awarded degrees for graduating in PhD, MBA, BBA-LLB (Hons), BTech, and BBA programmes.

Mohan Reddy, Founder and Executive Chairman of Cyient Limited, Chairman and member Board of Directors of IIT Hyderabad, and Chairman of NASSCOM, traced his 40 year old entrepreneurial journey of building a billion dollar company with business in 31 countries, employing 12,000 people. And in the process, shared some imperative gems of wisdom that would help future businessmen and entrepreneurs to be better than what they are.

Managerial gyaan

“Dream Big, look for the right timing, be persistent, take calculated risks, be ambitious and be paranoid about success,” he said, explaining that it was the first lesson an entrepreneur must learn. He then went on to explain the importance of a sound business model and how he built an institution around Sustainability, Predictability, De-risking and Profitability (SPDP). He highlighted the innovation brilliance as one of the elements of success of Cyient.

The fourth big lesson, he said, was the importance of an inclusive approach — i.e., understanding the needs of customers, employees, suppliers, shareholders, society and the environment — and incorporating them into enterprise strategy and sustainable value creation activities. Finally, stressing the importance of values as priceless for an enterprise, he explained how, at Cyient, the ‘Values First’ principle guided the behaviour and actions — Fairness, Integrity, Respect, Sincerity and Transparency.

Gold and silver medals

Medals were awarded to students for academic excellence and all round excellence. Gurpreet Singh received gold medal for academic excellence in MBA programme and Harish Kumar received the silver medal.

Saloni Rajneesh Anand was the recipient of N J Yasaswy-Apollo Hospitals Award for Best student, and Gold Medal. Harsh Sultania received the silver medal for all-round excellence in the MBA programme. Kirti Dahiya received the Saurabh Sharma Memorial Gold Medal as the First Rank holder in the Marketing stream of MBA programme. Arushi Goyal was the recipient of the Faiyaz Ahmed Khan Memorial Gold Medal as the First Rank holder in the Finance stream of MBA. Sachin Bhati and Harsh Bucha received the gold medal and silver medal respectively for academic excellence in the BBA programme, while Tanshi Sharma and Joel Vivek Bandi received gold and silver medal respectively for academic excellence in BTech programme. In BBA-LLB (Hons) programme, G S L Priyanka and M Tanya walked away with gold and silver medals for academic excellence respectively.

Professor D Satish was the recipient of the N J Yasaswy-Apollo Hospitals Award for the Best Faculty Member for All-round Excellence.

CH Hanumantha Rao, Chancellor of the University made a special mention of the research being carried out by the University faculty on topics of social relevance, and appreciated the other works being done by the institution in all areas.