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 The
former president of IBM India and now the CEO of the world’s largest
e-varsity, Dr Mukesh Aghi tells Sudipta Dev how commitment,
endurance, and a competitive sprit can win every race-—in sports
as well as the corporate world
Mukesh
Aghi has never believed in taking the easy way out in life, it is
always the unusual that has fascinated him. Whether it be going
to Beirut to get his Bachelor’s degree instead of the US or
UK, or chucking up his job as a senior fellow with the US House
of Representatives to work for a small software company beseiged
by problems. It is the challenge of the unusual that has brought
out the best in him, motivating him to excel and turnaround every
organisation he has worked for. This also includes his tenure as
the president of IBM India. It was also the first posting at home
for a man who proudly says that he has a global family.
Born
in Meerut, Uttar Pradesh, Aghi was sent to study in a boarding school
in Geneva, Switzerland at the age of six. After his schooling, he
opted to go to Beirut to do his Bachelor’s from the Middle
East College, where he graduated with Phi Beta Kappa honours. “I
could have gone to the US or UK, but went to an institution in Beirut
which was at that time called the Harvard of the East. The war started
but I stayed on and completed my degree.” His next destination
was Sweden where he worked for some time before heading for the
US to do his MBA in Interna-tional Marketing from Andrews University
in 1980. He got a doctorate in International Relations from Claremont
Graduate School, under none other than Peter Drucker. At the age
of 25 years Aghi completed his PhD and started working for a congressman
in Washington DC. He was restless to do something more challenging.
So Aghi gave up his cushy job and took up the daunting task of re-establishing
Dynamic Applications, a small software company in New Jersey which
was going through tough times. He successfully managed to make it
a profitable unit.
The
next big challenge however lured him to JD Edwards. ERP was still
an unknown market and the company itself a very small entity. During
his 5-year-long tenure with JD Edwards in Japan, mostly as vice-president
heading the APAC region, he was able to establish the identity of
the company in its niche market segment,
and played a key role
in increasing its turnover manifold.
Aghi’s
next assignment was homecoming time when he took charge as president
of IBM India in 1995. At that time IBM’s turnover was $50 million
here. He re-structured the company and grew it four times. He later
shifted to Singapore, when he was asked to manage the strategic
outsourcing for IBM. Then Ariba (a leading provider of B2B electronic
commerce solutions), offered him the interesting proposal to build
their international business and Aghi took up the challenge. The
two years he worked there the company the market capitalisation
of the company grew to $45 billion, changing the whole concept of
procurement.
Then
the dotcom bust happened and Aghi decided to leave Ariba. He studied
deeply which segment of the Internet would have the best future
prospects and focused on higher-end education. “In the future
education will evolve around the Internet. It is a 200 billion dollar
market with 32 million prospective students,” asserts Aghi.
Aghi
joined as the first CEO of Universitas 21 Global, a consortium of
16 international varsities and Thompson Learning. $100 million has
been invested in the world’s largest e-varsity, whose members
include University of Virginia, University of Edinburgh, University
of Melbourne, National University of Singapore, among others. A
committee has been formed by all the universities to formulate the
curriculum and monitor quality control. “When you graduate,
the crest of all universities
will
be on the certificate. Traditionally universities have been very
bad in dealing with their customers—the students. Our approach
will be different,” says Aghi. There is also the provision
of transferring credits to a physical college, if there is an opening.
Targeted
towards mid-career working professionals, the first course being
introduced this year is an MBA degree, which has already received
13,000 pre-applications, for 800 admissions. The next to be launched
is a Master’s programme in Infor-mation Systems and thereafter
a new degree programme will be introduced every year.
Informing
that most of the applications have come from the US, Aghi adds that
he sees tremendous prospects for e-learning in India. “Only
very few can get into premier institutions like the IITs. If they
get a virtual university that offers global branded degrees, the
market will take off,” says Aghi, reminding that in Asia the
two largest markets are India and China. Universitas also looks
at India as a base for leveraging technical resources, contact centres
and mentoring process online.
The
corporate sector is a vital market for which programmes will be
tailor-made for specific industries.
Aghi
acknowledges that what spurs him is taking on an idea and building
a global team. A man who has taken part in many marathons and still
runs 10 kilometres everyday, he believes that whether a physical
or a corporate race, what makes success possible in the end is
commitment, discipline, endurance and a competitive spirit. “I
focus on that,” he says with simplicity.
Besides
running long-distance races, his other interest is collecting red
wine. A connoisseur of wine, he is the proud owner of a large cellar
of rare vintage. Very much a family man, Aghi admits that his family
is his stress-buster. “Ours is a very global family. My 10-year-old
son has lived in five countries. He was born in Tokyo, while my
five-year-old daughter was born in New York,” he says, pointing
out that he does not forget to visit his hometown Meerut every year.
India
remains close to his heart even though Aghi has spent most of his
life outside the country. It was during his tenure as the president
of IBM India that the computer centre was set up at Bharatiya Vidya
Bhawan.
Recognised
by the Esquire magazine as “The Young Leader of Tomorrow”
in 1984, he has also received the Star of India and Asian Leader
awards. For someone who looks at his achievements as milestones
that keep changing, Aghi believes that if he can contribute in some
way towards bridging the digital disparity between rich and poor
nations by leveraging technology, that will be true success for
him.
Contact
the writer at
sudipta@expresscomputeronline.com
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