Anu Chitrapu, MBA '06

MIT Alumni Create Companies With Combined Revenues of $2 Trillion!

I was just reading the articles from the Sloan newsroom and found some information, related to entrepreneurship and Sloan, that is truly amazing.

According to Professor Ed Roberts, "Estimates based on 2006 data revealed that living MIT alumni have founded or cofounded 25,800 companies that today employ 3.3 million people worldwide. The annual sales of these companies add up to about $2 trillion--the equivalent of the 11th-largest economy in the world." A lot of inferences can be drawn from this study but the most obvious one (obvious but which I will still point out!) is that if you are planning to go to Business School and entrepreneurship is your chosen goal then MIT Sloan is definitely the school for you. 

Dutch Auction for Jasmine Flowers in Chennai

I am in Chennai, India enjoying a few weeks of vacation with family. Chennai is now a totally different city from the one I grew up in - including the name itself. The city known as Madras before decided to shed the name given by the British and go by its original tamil name of Chennai.

It has been an interesting trip so far. Yesterday I was talking to a flower woman who buys jasmine flowers in the wholesale market every morning at 3 am and then sells it in the city in small quantities. She told me about the predictable but changing prices of flowers - the flowers were most expensive on Thursdays as the demand for them exceeded the supply on Fridays. But there was no way she could avoid paying the high prices on Thursday as they would wilt and get brown if she bought them earlier. I told her about the tulips in Amsterdam and explained the Dutch auction and how it worked. "Oh that," she said non-chalantly. The sellers use that when a large truckload of jasmine flowers arrive and they need to get rid of them quickly. They set it at 500 rupees per bundle and if no one buys them they reduce it by 25 rupees till someone like me buys them. Flowers sell very quickly that way, she explained.

So much for my detailed explaining! The flower sellers in Chennai probably never heard of tulips or Dutch auctions but are using the same method whenever appropriate. This is one case when recreating the wheel is not a bad thing. Each one creates a wheel to their specific needs. Dutch auctions in Chennai - what an awesome concept!

TiE Conference & Tom Ashbrook

I was hoping that by June I could write about how the economy is recovering and things are looking up all over the world but I am not sure we are there yet. Every article I read seems to have a different take on the economy but I do think we have touched the bottom and from here there is no place to go but up. I am so confident of this that I am crossing my fingers and toes!

Last week I attended the annual conference organized by TiE (The Indus Entrepreneurs) of which I am a charter member. Entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, business leaders and students gathered for a couple of days to attend panel discussions on hot topics ranging from cloud computing to social entrepreneurship. My favorite part of the conference was the banquet where Tom Ashbrook, of NPR fame, conducted a fireside chat with Jonathan Bush, founder & CEO of Athena Health. The young CEO was funny beyond words and narrated incidents from his entrepreneurship journey that had us laughing all the way. If only building a company involved so much laughing there would be many more entrepreneurs! As for Tom Ashbrook anyone who has heard him on NPR knows he is amazingly articulate, but what one finds in person is that he is extremely personable too. I grabbed the chance to chat with him after the event and was thrilled beyond words when he spoke to me in Telugu, my mother tongue! Tom was always my favorite reporter but after that chat with him, I now think of him as a friend. 

In the non-profit world, the organization I am involved with, Vision Aid, is getting ready for its annual event so I am immersed in the world of flyers, brochure designs etc. We were very lucky to find an excellent designer who is designing all our marketing materials for free. Through Vision Aid I have met several such people who strengthen my belief that in spite of all the things we read about everyday, the world is a good place with people who care about each other.

Happy New Year!

What a year 2008 has been! Unprecedented activity in the financial services shocked us, rocked us and now has left us at a point where nothing can be a surprise anymore - in some sense, I feel like, we have seen it all. 2008 will down in history as a year of redefining Wall Street and we can all talk about it for the next several years - unless 2009 beats 2008!

It looks like the number of applicants to Sloan (or all B-schools for that matter) has gone up this year. I have had the pleasure to talk to several potential applicants and have to admit I am always envious after chatting with them - it feels like there are so many new courses and new opportunities that students at Sloan have now. I wish I could go back to Sloan and soak up all the new stuff. I have spoken to applicants from HongKong, India and of course U.S. While their backgrounds are very different and they come from different cultures, I see one thing in common - the desire to get an MBA from Sloan.

It's not just applicants that are all around the world - Sloan alumni are everywhere! I go to a kids soccer game in Belmont, MA and there I meet a Sloanie, I get into the pool in a resort in Cancun, Mexico and there I see a Sloanie in his bright red Sloan T-Shirt! I am waiting in the airport in Atlanta and a Sloanie comes by to say hello, I am driving down a road in Chennai, India and the car in front has an MIT Sloan sticker...the list goes on. Talk about a global community!

2009 brings a new role for me at work. I am now the Business Manager for the CIO Technology Council. The council basically decides the technology strategy for the bank - it is very exciting to sit at the table with our super-smart CIOs. I'm hoping some of their skills will come to me by virtue of being in the same room!

Like everyone else, I am wishing for a 2009 where the credit crisis will pass, housing prices will reverse in direction, the recession will end..but most of all I am wishing for a 2009 where we won't have to deal with war, terrorism, hunger and poverty.

Summer is gone; so are some major players in the financial services sector!

What just happended to the financial services industry? The good news is that 20 years from now, I can talk about how I lived through this historic period. The bad news is that I aged 20 years in the last one month. The one positive outcome of all the drama in the industry, is that, I no longer feel bad about how my head used to spin in finance class. Added to that is the benefit that all those financial instruments that caused me so much grief, are probably no longer relevant.

While the financial services industry is being redefined, there is a lot of good work going on in the social enterprise. I recently attended a gala for an organization called Akshayapatra. The chief guest for the evening was Narayana Murthy (yes, the one and only). Not only did Narayana Murthy achieve phenomenal success in the IT world, he has also transformed the futures of >1Million children in India by providing lunch to underprivileged school children. Thanks to the nutritious lunch offered at school, more parents are sending their children (both boys and girls) to school. So through one initiative Akshayapatra is taking care of both education and nutrition.

Speaking of India, this is festive season in India which translates to party time for us Indians in the U.S. A bunch of us in the diversity group at work, are planning some fun events around Diwali, including some Bollywood style dances. The only problem is my two left feet so I am sticking to organizing and leaving the dancing to the others - I believe in each one sticking to their core competence. Happy Diwali!

Working With Vision Aid

For the past one year, I have been serving on the board of a non-profit organization called Vision Aid. This organization provides computer skills and tools to the visually challenged, low income people in India. The demand for Vision Aid's services far exceeds the supply. Our single center in India is not able to accomodate all the applicants who come to the center seeking training. In order to raise funds for a new center we ran our first ever fund raising event "Ramayana - A Visual Journey", a solo dance drama in a traditional Indian dance form with English narration. The event was held at "The National Heritage Museum, Lexington" and was completely sold out! It was an awesome feeling to realize that the proceeds far exceeded our expectations. I am particularly excited because we now have enough money to provide early intervention programs for children - a few dollars can help detect visual problems early enough to prevent low vision or even blindness later in life.

This year I will be serving as President of Vision Aid and along with the title comes the responsibility of creating a plan for the year that will help us set up a new center, work with more children and raise funds to implement all the ideas!

The Future of Banking

I was very excited to hear that Bank of America is now collaborating with the MIT Media Lab to create the "Center for Future Banking". For the Sloanies in the bank, this is great news because it deepens our relationship with MIT. When terms like maximizing social networks, innovating to respond to evolving customer behavior etc. are being discussed what other place can be better than the MIT Media Lab to come up with the innovation engine?

I still remember the effect the Media Lab building had on me every time I went there - rooms filled with little lego pieces, indecipherable signs on the pillars, experiments in progress! When I was in that building I would readily believe in Star Wars, time travel, aliens - anything. When prospective students asked me to show them around the campus I would always make a stop in the Media Lab and watch their eyes fill up with wonder. So it is no wonder that this collaboration is personally so exciting for me.

But, while the geniuses in the Media Lab are contemplating what the future of banking will be, I am living in the present and need to bury my head in spreadsheets, forecasts, offshoring, rate increases....which means I better get back into the present before the magic of the future consumes me!

Learning Management Techniques From Mickey

November '07

I just returned from a 4 day trip to Disney. This trip was not to enjoy the rides but to learn some management and operations techniques at the Disney Institute. A lucky group of 50 associates at the Bank were recognized for outstanding performance and we were all sent to attend a "Recognition Retreat" that involved leading, learning and of course a lot of fun - all Disney style! As part of this we took a tour of the Magic Kingdom - not the view you normally get to see but a view from the basement which is the operations headquarters for the Magic Kingdom. It was only after taking the tour that it struck me that the scale of operations at Disney requires some heavy duty innovation, attention to detail and intricate planning. For instance just handling the laundry in that place is mind boggling. Mickeys are getting in and out of their costumes all the time - imagine what it would mean if a Mickey about to start duty cannot find a costume!

The innovation in Disney needs to happen and is happening constantly. We learned some great management techniques that foster innovation. Like, no idea is a bad idea - creating an environment where people are not shy about exploring what seems like a crazy idea is what brings us the next generation rides and shows. It was a fun and rejuvenating four days - only problem is after those warm days and magical Disney nights it is tough to focus on spreadsheets and come up with accurate forecasts for 2008! But that is where the Sloan training kicks in - we are all used to playing hard and working hard. And to prove it, I better get some sleep now so I can focus on work tomorrow morning.

Ending summer and entering fall

The summer of 2007 passed by in a flash. First there was the TiE (The Indus Entrepreneurs) conference, then a 2 week trip to India and then little work trips to Charlotte and New York and all of a sudden it is fall! At the TiE conference, I met several Sloanies, some I knew before and some I met at the conference for the first time. When I realized there were so many Sloanies at the conference I decided to try out a quick social network idea - I walked around the conference and wrote "MIT Sloan" on the badges of all the Sloanies I met. On the second day the Sloanies found each other and of course Sloan took over. We talked about our oceans, classes we took, the trips we enjoyed, the entrepreneurial ideas we had etc. etc and soon realized that we were chatting in the corridors as opposed to attending the valuable sessions!

I sneaked in another business trip to Hyderabad, India. This time I was not at all shocked at the change I saw in Hitec City, not because the change was not amazing but because this time I was expecting it. I also made a quick trip to New Delhi and Agra with my family. The day we were in Agra, the Taj Mahal made it to the "7 Wonders of the Modern World" list and everyone was celebrating. Quite honestly I thought the Taj Mahal was always on the list so I was a little surprised at all the media attention this event got. As it turns out there was some contest going on where people could vote a particular wonder on to the list of 7. The voting could be done on the internet or on the cell phone. I heard from someone that this whole contest idea was a brilliant move on the part of the cell phone operators to make some quick money which they did!

This fall I will once again spend some quality recruiting hours in Sloan, hosting receptions for the students, running information sessions and interviewing candidates for my workplace. Needless to say, I can't wait to see what the new students are like - the only problem is I get very envious when they start talking about all the fun they are having in school.

Getting back into matters that matter most

This past month my evenings and weekends have been taken up with organizing an event for a non-profit organization called Akshayapatra. This organization provides nutritious noon-time meals to underprivileged kids in India, thereby ensuring both nutrition and education for these kids. The reason I decided to volunteer my time to this organization was the amazingly low operational costs and overheads it has. Only $28 provides a midday meal to a child for an entire school year!

               

Given there are so many non-profits competing for philanthropic dollars I thought a good way to raise awareness and funds would be to have a cultural show, and sell tickets for the show. With this in mind I contacted a person I know who organized Bollywood music shows, and gave the proceeds to a cause he believed in. This person, Mohan Somasundaram, is a physician by profession, and uses all his spare time for cause-related activities. He put together a great show with phenomenal local talent to an auditorium of over 200 attendees on May 20. Personally, this was a very gratifying event and increased my resolve to make sure to stay involved and be part of the community-related transformation that needs to take place.

               

On another non-work related front, I am helping out with the organization of TiECON 2007. This is the annual conference of a group I am associated with, called The Indus Entrepreneurs. I am a charter member of this organization, and this year I am producing a panel called “Using Analytics to Improve The Bottom Line.” The moderator for my panel is Tom Davenport, the undisputed guru of analytics. The panelists, Chris Ahlberg (founder, Spotfire), Rama Ramakrishnan (Chief Analytics Officer, Oracle Retail), Prof. Ananth Raman (HBS), Brij Masand (Data-Miners), and Steve Smith (founder, Optus) are all experts in the field. The conference will be held on June 14 and 15, so more on the conference in my next journal entry. Now it is time for me to pack for my business trip to Dallas, TX.