A group of Indian veterans raise ₹300 crore to build a B-school where chief executives will teach

• A group of veteran leaders, academics and bureaucrats committed ₹300 crore to build Masters’ Union School of Business (MUSB) — where classes would be taught by chief executives.
  
• The institute will offer a post graduate programme in technology and business management (PGP TBM) — which is a 16-month programme with live projects, internships and field tours.
  
• Backers include the director of the University of Oxford, Karthik Ramanna, the former chief economist at the Reserve Bank of India; Narendra Jadhav and Arun Maira, the former chairmen of the Boston Consulting Group (BCG).

A group of veteran business leaders, academics and bureaucrats came together to build a model business school. Here, the classes would be taught by chief executives and not lecturers.


As many as 19 of them have already committed ₹300 crore to build — Masters’ Union School of Business (MUSB) — where classes would be taught by chief executives and other business leaders.

“The element I am most excited about is that the curriculum will be developed dynamically with inputs from leaders in business, leaders from the government as well as leaders from the third sector,” Karthik Ramanna, director of the University of Oxford University and one of the members of the group, said.

First-hand look into the day of a CXO

The ‘industry-immersed’ curriculum will be led by the leaders to provide a hands-on learning experience. “Masters’ Union will run a CXO shadow programme that would enable students to have a first-hand look into a day of a CXO to experience how organizations are run and business decisions are made,” the institute said.

The technology-focused business school aims to formulate an ‘internship style’ academic calendar which will entail boot camps in AI, blockchain, SAAS and cybersecurity. Each student will receive a one on one apprenticeship.

“In medical schools, doctors teach students, practicing lawyers teach in law schools, but in business schools, faculty may not have experience with hands-on leadership in the industry. That’s a gap Masters’ Union addresses by getting CXOs, MDs and business leaders to teach and train students,” said Tathagata Dasgupta, founding master at MUSB and former chief data scientist at Viacom.

Gurugram and its 600 MNCs

Apart from Ramanna, the institute’s founding members include top leaders like Mukund Rajan, former MD of Tata Teleservices; Narendra Jadhav, former chief economist of Reserve Bank of India; and Arun Maira, the former chairman of the Boston Consulting Group (BCG).

The institute will be built in cyber city in Gurugram— with over 600 multinationals in the vicinity. The institute will offer a post graduate programme in technology and business management (PGP TBM) — which is a 16-month programme with live projects, internships and field tours across industries like ecommerce, technology, product and banking.

It will also establish a student-run venture fund worth ₹5 crore for investments in areas like real estate and capital markets and a research forum. “The Centre for New Business Models would be a research-based forum that will formulate business opportunities in newer technologies like blockchain, bio-tech, and machine learning,” the official release said.

Here’s the full list of the founding masters at Masters’ Union School of Business and their teaching areas.