Of Cats and Underdogs

Business Today is a magazine fond of making lists. Every issue features at least one 'top 10' something or the other. One issue (an old one i came across) had India's best mutual fund managers.

The intro stated: "Many are Indian Institute of Management (IIM) grads, others are Chartered Accountants (CAs) and a couple sport more esoteric degrees". I skimmed through the survey, more as anxiously as I could and here were the startling results.

The scorecard
FMS - 1
JBIMS - 2
NMIMS - 1
CAs - 2
unknown - 1
IIM Lucknow - 1

Unless the author of the intro meant "MBAs from premier institutes" - which included FMS and JBIMS - the IIM reference was actually misleading!

The 'esoteric' degrees the magazine referred to were basically MBAs from lesser known - actually unknown - institutes. There were 3 on the list, which was a statistically significant 30%. These included:

MBA Allahabad University
(Ashish Kumar, 35 - GM, LIC Mutual Fund)

MBA Bhopal University
( Rahul Goswami, 32 - Sr Fund Manager, Prudential ICICI AMC)

Hindu Institute of Management, Sonepat
( Sujoy Kumar Das, 32 - VP - DSP Merrill Lynch MF)

I wondered, a dozen years after graduating from IIM  - how much does the institute label matter? Well, to some, at the entry level - a hell of a lot. Many companies dont take MBAs outside the top few institutes through campus placements, so definitely you get a headstart.

But they do take in lateral recruits based on performance - and hence success stories like Sujoy, the Sonepat MBA who started his career with Bank of Punjab. And of course we all know this at some level - that in the end it's we as individuals who are responsible for our career graphs - regardless of which institute we graduate from.

But I'd just like to highlight this point, because I often meet young people who tried for IIMs, didn't make it and are now studying elsewhere. And feeling terrible about it. I want to say to all of you that 10 years from now it's really not going to matter. Although you may use it as an excuse to explain why you aren't doing as well as X, Y or Z.

Bottom line: It's what I call the cats and dogs theory at work in every field of life - not just MBA. The cats are the ones born with the silver spoons or who manage to enter institutes of a certain reputation. But the underdog can have his day - and often does.