mani ratnam MBA, deliver a guest lecture in IIM Calcutta
9th September 2007 will see IIM Calcutta students witness critically acclaimed director Mani Ratnam, deliver a Guest Lecture about opportunities and challenges for people aspiring to make a cut in the entertainment industry. Being organized jointly by Entrepreneurship Cell (E-Cell) and Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation (CEI) exclusively for students of IIM Calcutta, this talk is part of a series of talks being organized by E-Cell to expose B-school students to different careers and industries, including emerging and unconventional functions.
To this end, E-Cell had previously organized Ascent ‘07 - a workshop on various aspects of starting up one’s own venture, which saw speakers (including leading venture capitalist Mahesh Murthy and ad-man Prahlad Kakkar) and over 200 participants coming in from all over the country. It also plans to conduct theme workshops on different industries which offer significant entrepreneurial opportunities but are typically not the focus of B-school curricula, ranging from apparel, restaurants, wellness and entertainment.
When it comes to the entertainment industry, with over two decades of experience in the industry and his education (Mr. Ratnam himself did an MBA from Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies and worked as a management consultant before he decided to follow his ambition of weaving celluloid magic), Mr. Ratnam was an automatic choice for talking about an industry which would appear distant and unrealistic as a career option for most B-school students.
As an acclaimed director, an enterprising businessman (he is owner of Madras Talkies, a big-banner production house), an acknowledged talent-spotter and of course the unique ability to speak to B-school students in their language, Mr. Ratnam’s talk promises to be a crowd-puller at IIM-C. Known for his distinctive film-making style which revolutionized Indian cinema, National Award winner Mr. Ratnam has made films on a variety of topics. He has also been involved in business forays into the entertainment industry. Mr. Ratnam has also been involved with Focus Investments, a group concern of Madras Talkies that provides professional services to film-makers in creative and technical domains like film editing, outdoor production services, Line production services and training.