Announcement of IIMB DAA 2020 awards
We are delighted to announce the recipients of the IIMB Distinguished Alumni Award for 2020. The Distinguished Alumni Awards, instituted in 2007, is given to alumni in recognition of their achievements of exceptional merit and excellence in their chosen field of endeavors – be it industry, management, entrepreneurship, research, academia or social service. The DAA awards will be given during the pre-convocation day celebrations being held on 19th March 2020.
Each recipient of the DAA receives a citation and his/her name is engraved on the wall of fame in the Institute. We have three alums who have been awarded the DAA this year. All the DAA 2020 recipients are located outside India!
Dhruv Deepak Saxena, PGP 1975-77
DD Saxena is the Promoter Director and Founder of ROBE (Riverina Oils and BioEnergy), a $150 million investment in an oilseed crushing and refining plant in Australia. He successfully set up the only cottonseed crushing plant in Australia by making blended cottonseed-based animal feed products and is the MD of Oilseeds Australia.
He successfully set up multiple green-field projects in four countries, has exceptional entrepreneurial flair and has senior management experience with quality organizations such as Unilever, Thapar Group of Companies (Ballarpur Industries) and was Managing Director of Bakrie International which is a multi-billion dollar company in South East Asia.
DD Saxena is a member of the Australia India CEO Forum which is organized by DFAT, and the Chair of India Business Forum, an initiative of CII launched 2018 in Australia. He was appointed by the Australian Prime Minister and is the only Indian in the CEO panel of Australia. He has won several accolades such as the Asia Pacific Entrepreneur of the year award in 2016, Indian Australian Ambassador award in 2015 at the Annual India Australia Business and Community Awards (IABCA), CEO of the year Resources & Energy in 2016/17, NRI Of the year award by Times Now in 2016, etc.
He was instrumental in starting the gherkin industry in Karnataka which employs more than a million people. He was also involved in organizing the first 20/20 cricket tournament in India in 2005. He is also involved in healthcare and community development projects near Mahabalipuram that has benefitted 32,000 people across 24 villages. He has also been supporting the Parikrama Foundation, Bangalore, for many years now.
Committee Excerpt: Mr. DD Saxena showcases the potential that every IIMB Alumnus possesses in making a difference both in India and in International Markets. Through his involvement in Business, International Image building for India, Sports, Social and Community issues and Successful New Ventures he reminds us that excellence manifests invariably in a multi-dimensional way.
Kusum L Ailawadi, PGP 1982-84
Kusum Ailawadi is a Professor of Marketing at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth. Kusum is the Charles Jordan 1911 TU’12 Professor of Marketing at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth. Her research focuses on the strategic interaction and distribution of power between manufacturers and their distribution channel partners. Kusum’s work has been honored for excellence in collaborative research between academics and practitioners, and for outstanding application of marketing science methods to practice. She is the first woman in Tuck’s history to rise through the ranks starting as Assistant Professor and receive full tenure Professorship.
She is a recipient of best paper awards from top marketing journals like Journal of Marketing, Marketing Science, and Journal of Retailing; the winner of the Marketing Science Institute/Journal of Marketing Research competition for academic-practitioner collaborative research; and a finalist for multiple awards from the Journal of Marketing Research as well as the ISMS Practice Prize. She currently teaches highly regarded electives on Managing the Marketing Channel and Marketing Research in Tuck’s MBA program.
Committee Excerpt: Dr. Kusum L Ailawadi truly represents the power of focused efforts in academics leading to impactful contributions to the chosen area of expertise. She inspires every aspiring IIM Alumnus by signaling that professional excellence can continue to be recognized and rewarded.
Sangeet Paul Choudary, PGP 2004-06
Sangeet Paul Choudary is a business scholar, entrepreneur, advisor, and author. He is the founder of Platformation Labs. He is best known for his work on platform economics and network effects. His work on platform economics was selected as one of the top 10 management ideas globally by the Harvard Business Review and included in the collection HBR’s 10 Must Reads 2017. For his contributions to the field of platform economics, he was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum in 2017. Choudary co-authored the article “Pipelines, Platforms, and the New Rules of Strategy” in the April 2016 edition of the Harvard Business Review and in 2019, it was selected as one of the top 10 articles on the topic of business model innovation, ever published in the Harvard Business Review.
He has been appointed as an external expert on several Fortune 500 advisory boards, including the ING Bank’s Global Innovation Council. He is also appointed to the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Platforms and Systems. He has also been retained as an industry thought leader by technology brands including Microsoft, Huawei, and AT&T. In February 2018, Choudary addressed the Parliament of Denmark on labor policy for the platform economy, stressing on the need for a new data-driven regulation paradigm for platforms. His recommendations for regulating platforms through open data sharing were instrumental in informing the Danish government’s decision to implement open data regulation for Airbnb in May 2018.
Choudary is an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at the INSEAD Business School and the co-chair of the MIT Platform Strategy Summit at the MIT Media Lab. He is a research fellow at the Centre for Global Enterprise, a New York-based Think Tank. In 2017, Choudary was also selected as one of the 50 thinkers included in the compilation Dear CEO by Thinkers50.
As of date, Sandeep is the youngest recipient of the DAA award!
Committee Excerpt: Mr. Sangeet Paul Choudary demonstrates how one can make a significant impact by sheer professional excellence, diligence, and hard work and by following the passion than a more familiar path. His widespread participation in International forums reminds us that knowledge and insights that one possesses are always valued and sought after.
Hearty congratulations to all of them!
