About 160 of us piled into three buses early Thursday morning for the 12+ hour ride to Paris. First thing the next morning, game on. It was pretty fun to see the athlete come out in people that you wouldn’t have expected (or seen) otherwise. One guy on our course ran the 100 meters in 11.8 seconds on a shoddy track! Another guy was a phenomenal rock climber. A friend of mine who claims to “jog” occasionally came out and placed third on our team in the 7 km cross country race, beating all the girls and most of the other guys! Needless to say, I’m not jogging with her anymore ; )

Our ultimate frisbee team placed second overall. It was the last sport of the first day, so we ended up with a huge cheering squad. We had to go up against London Business School, which had a bunch of American guys who had played a lot before. We were down 4-0 after about 10 minutes, then managed to bring it back to 5-5, then they took off again and I think we lost 10-6 or something. It was a great game, though, and so fun to have lots of people watching, cheering, saying things like, “wow, I didn’t know this is how you played frisbee!”

I ran cross country too, which was literally the most pathetic race of my life–I wasn’t planning to run, but got woken up by the cross country captain at 7:30 am saying “we need one more girl to field two teams…you have to save the day!!” Of course, I’m a sucker for saving the day so I stumbled out of bed and ran to catch the bus to the starting point. I was exhausted from the day before, dehydrated, confused, and the course was really long and really hilly…I think I ran about 10 minute miles the whole way just trying not to die. In the end, they didn’t count our second team, so the whole thing was pointless. The only good out of it was that it gave me a chance to preview the course for the mountain biking race later that day. Let’s just say it was a lot more fun on a bike.

Our guys rugby team won the whole tournament—I haven’t ever paid attention to rugby before coming here, but it is by far the roughest game I’ve ever seen. At the end of the last match the guys all looked like they’d been through a war zone—dislocated shoulders, twisted ankles, scrapes, stitches, bruises…but wearing their gold medals proudly. The weather was gorgeous all weekend, and a bunch of us went to Versailles for the afternoon before catching the overnight bus back to Oxford. Now, back to life—3 assignments due this week.

1. Richard Branson (and people like Richard Branson) are forces of nature. Don’t try to stop a force of nature.
2. It’s all about people. You’re not going to make yourself successful, other people are going to make you successful. Surround yourself with good people and treat them well.
3. Solve problems for people—they’ll tend to like you for it and give you more and bigger problems to solve.
4. When you’re handed an opportunity, don’t be afraid to take it!
5. No matter how good you are or how hard you try, a crap idea will never work.
6. If you can’t hold the whole solution to a problem in your own head, it’s probably too complicated and probably won’t work.

During the spring break, I attended the Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship. It was a great opportunity not only to learn about social entrepreneurship but also to talk directly to and be inspired by participants with such unique experience. I would like to write here about one of the things I was especially impressed with – Karen Tse’s comments during the opening plenary session. I believe I am not alone in being so touched by her comments since during the Forum, I again and again heard other people mentioning what she had said on the first day.

During the panel discussion among Pat Mitchell, Nafis Sadik MD, Jody Williams and herself, Karen Tse, an international attorney who has been pursuing to end torture and unjust legal proceedings, shared with us the following experience that made her realize the power of compassion and interconnectedness in bringing changes to the world.

Witnessing police officers beating prisoners in Cambodia, she at first tried to fix things by saying to them in a straightforward way, “This is the law. You are not allowed to torture prisoners.” But things didn’t change. So she tried another way. She asked a police officer why he became a police officer. His answer, surprisingly, was that because he wanted to stop violence he had long witnessed in his country. Karen said to him, “That is great. What do you think about what is happening – what you are doing here right now? Do we see a contradiction here?” That’s when things started to work out; she could connect to the sense of value deep down in the police officer’s mind, which resonates with her attempt to end torture as an investigation tool.

When asked in the panel discussion about the biggest challenges she had ever been faced with, Karen mentioned that her biggest challenges had actually been in the west, where “the biases tend to be subconscious.” However, her view is that in the Asian developing countries she had been working in, where problems were so obvious, things had actually been easy to handle: “We can come to something universal that we can connect to. That’s a piece of cake.” And she said this in such a lively, passionate and convincing way, perhaps in the same way as she had been talking to and influencing a number of people including the police officer in Cambodia. I found her comment both extremely refreshing and encouraging since her view is supported by her actual experiences of successfully connecting to “something universal.”

The second event was a networking dinner at Keble College.  If you haven’t seen pictures of Keble’s dining hall, there is one posted down here. Basically, the hall is incredible—think Harry Potter. We had about 220 students and delegates come for dinner, complete with a trivia game and chocolate mousse. It was a fantastic opportunity to meet some really interesting people working in the field, plus the dinner was quite tasty ; )

Make sure to check out Jimmy Carter’s speech at the Skoll Awards Ceremony on video. It was incredible. Sir Anthony Giddens was another highlight, and Paul Farmer of Partners in Health was also amazing. Basically, if you’re in Oxford next March and you’d like to help make the world a better place, you should make sure to be at the 2009 Forum.

There’s only one week of lectures left for Hilary Term. After that, it’s one week for revision and then, it’s exams week again. I can’t believe that the second term is already almost over. It seems that it just started. Last Friday, I submitted an assignment for Operations Management. It was about Zara, a multinational clothing retailer. I don’t think I have ever been in one of these shops. Anyways, the case study was about its IT infrastructure. We had to decide whether to keep the old system or to replace it with a new system. If we wanted to replace it which functionalities should we build into the new system? It was an individual assignment which is rather unusual because most of our practical work is done in groups. For example, for Operations Management, there were already two group assignments before the individual one. There’s one exception though. As one of the electives for this term, I chose Marketing, Culture & Society. That’s probably not such a typical MBA course. The amount of reading we have to do for this course is really immense. I’m not saying that there’s not much reading for all the other courses, but for that course, it’s definitely even more. We draw from anthropology and question some of the economic theories we are taught in other courses. It’s quite interesting but it definitely is a lot of work, not only because of the readings but also because of the assignments. It’s three of them and they are all individual. The last one – which is due a week from now – has a word limit between 4,500 and 5,500 words. I really have to get started on it. Yet, the good thing about this course is it doesn’t have an exam.

Also nice about the course is that we get to hear many guest speakers, e.g. Sir Lindsay Owen-Jones from L’Oreal and Paul Temporal who gave an interesting presentation on Nation Branding. In general, there was a really great variety of guest speakers at the business school this term. I can’t even remember all of them. But I will probably never forget John Bird’s presentation. He’s the founder of “The Big Issue” and drank a bottle of wine faster during his presentation than I would usually do at a party. Speaking of parties, that reminds me of the vibrant social life here in Oxford. One of the highlights was the Burns Night. At my college, Mansfield, we had a bagpipe player, some whisky and lots of really delicious haggis. There were several other nice dinners as well, e.g. the New Year Dinner at the Oxford and Cambridge Club in London or all the Exchange Dinners that my MCR (Middle Common Room) had organised with other college’s MCRs. I could probably go on writing about dinners forever. I just do love all these dinners. Another thing Oxford is famous for are the College Bops. Unfortunately, I only managed to go to one this term, the Hollywood Bop at Linacre College, but that was definitely a lot of fun. It’s almost sad that Hilary Term is nearly over. I just wished all the exams were already over, too!

A lot has happened as is usual.

A few dinners: Karans place, Pranav (microwave-frozen-food-cook ;-)), Green college, Mansfield College, Mktg team dinner
Parties: SBS Bop, Brazilian Carnival
Speakers/Special dinners: Sir Tom Hunter , John Bird, Oxford Business Alumni trip to London
Great nights: Rocking nite at luvraj’s, at abhi’s Jesus GCR,
Assignments: lets not go there!
Special mention: I shot for a video (see link n rate my oscar worthy performance), moved apartments (newer pad n closer to school)

Other: Finalizing trip to Dubai in April (should i drop in to india for a bit??), Trip to Paris for MBATs in May, got most electives for the next term except for Private Equity

Allrite. So how are we doing :-)?

Its weird, there is like a lot lot more to do this semester. But for some strange reason I seem to be in a super chill zone. Avg sleep hours up to 10 (ppl at Said read this and they will faint!), havent been as regular with lectures, EP — something I really am interested in given I was nurturing the idea since Los Angeles days — is really blow hot blow cold and am way behind on it!

What else…NBA all star is here. Too bad cant catch the games live. But just saw highlights of Dwight Howard winning the DUnk fest. Specta-freakin-cular!

Its 4 am at night and just got done with an assignment so will sign off….! More later…

He was honest, entertaining, and tangible. He talked a lot about being lucky, but also about that something inside of all good entrepreneurs that no one can quite pin down. So far, I’ve gathered that it has something to do with being restless, energetic, creative, risk-taking, and not liking it when other people tell you what to do. The best part about Sir Tom Hunter was his authenticity. I totally believed that every question he answered he did so without pretence or agenda. Someone asked “If you could change one thing in the world, what would it be?” His first answer was, “I’d have hair.”  Then he went on to talk about the education system in the UK and how it wasn’t serving kids, like he had been, who don’t fit the mould. Basically, he was just a guy, who happened to get lucky, and became the richest man in Scotland.

Having sold his company for a quarter of a billion pounds at the age of 37, Sir Tom found himself without much to do. Since, he’s become one of the global leaders in venture philanthropy and has vowed to give away £1 billion in his lifetime. He’s given generously to social change campaigns like “Make Poverty History” and supports much of the work being done by the Clinton Foundation in Africa.

In the Q&A session, I asked what he would recommend to people who want to make a difference in the world but who don’t have a billion pounds to do it with. He said, “You don’t have to have a billion pounds, because there will be people out there like me who already have a billion pounds. And people like me need people like you. Figure out what you’re good at, and get on the right team.” I thought it was a pretty good answer to an admittedly tough question.

Sir Lindsay Owen-Jones, Chairman of L’Oreal, one of the distinguished speakers who visited the Said Business School this term, was especially impressive. What I personally found amazing that seemed to underlie his talk, was his most sincere yet such a natural attitude to respect people’s “dignity,” both within and outside the corporation. When talking about having a wide array of brands with diverse nationalities, he mentioned how it also makes people from many different backgrounds in the company proud – proud of brands of their home countries, and proud of being there as world citizens in such an international company, listening to and understanding the needs of each sold country. I believe his respect for other people’s dignity must have cheered up and motivated a lot of people around him even if he himself has not been totally aware of it. It was all the more impressive since he also told us how he felt a sense of familiarity arriving in Oxford from L’Oreal because two places commonly embrace people with diverse nationalities, and both offer a unique opportunity for us to become world citizens.

Seeing respect for people’s “dignity” as the key, I conjured up several other people who I believe share this attitude. One person is Prof Muhammad Yunus, the founder of the Grameen Bank; I sincerely admire him because he helped the poor to become able to live their own lives and explore their potential – perhaps to live with dignity –, instead of simply giving out aid. Another person, — I hope he does not mind my writing here – is Dr Tomo Suzuki, who taught us Financial Reporting in the previous term. I always liked the way he treated us, students, with respect while also encouraging, or sometimes urging us to be responsible. For example, the following is the phrase he put on the very first page of preliminary exercises for the course:

Why Enron scandal happened?
Because, bookkeeping has been treated as “trivial,” and people do not know how accounting figures are made up.
As Oxford graduates, we are socially responsible to know at least some basics of bookkeeping.

I personally found it very impressive.

It was some thoughts on people, who, in my view, naturally keep encouraging other people to be proud of themselves in ways they deserve, each in totally different places and in different ways. I personally think it is one of the best things you can do in your life, and I hope to be like them.

First of all apologies for taking a 6 week break from the blog!!! I missed writing and hope some of you did reading (shout out to all family and friends who kept reminding me to update it). But I am coming back from a great event which inspired me to share with you all. Will get to it in a bit.

First of all, what was I up to these past few weeks. Lets make it fast. Exams in december, big time parttttttttttty from 1130 am to 4 am the next day, trip to london, lord of the rings musical, back to India, met up loads of old friends, trip to mumbai, 31st bang with school friends and couple of MBA friends in abad, great family time as my sis made a special trip to abad too, back to oxford, unbelievably dreadful weather (which just refuses to get better), un-freaking-believably busy semester (2 core, 3 electives, entrepreneurshp project, internship and scp search, fulltime job search, electives for upcoming semesters, on average 3 projects a week with 4 different groups), couple of great fun night outs….phew! pics for some of these events are up. Will put up others too…

Now I shall share with you a great evening. The day started as usual early (hate getting up in darkness, even at 730, all cold and having to choose between extremely hot water or extremely cold water for a face wash as two seperate taps here in the UK) as had to go for an operations management short field trip to the biggest TESCO in the neighbourhood with my study group. Have a great group for the core courses (all groups i have this term are great :P!!). Spent about an hour there and back. Got home, changed as had a meeting with my Entrepreneurial project team. Then after another meet with MBA director with regards our EP, back home to get into a tux for a presentation by L’Oreal CEO Sir Lindsay Jones which was to be followed by dinner with him and his team and a few select MBA students.

The talk, in my mind, was one of better ones I have heard. Sir Jones’s speech personified what he said was the one thing his journey meant to him: FUN. He delivered expert subtle nuances on ‘Enduring Success’ from his experiences at L’Oreal in a very engaging way.

AFter a drinks reception for networking with all the L’Oreal guests and all the audience, a few of us proceeded for dinner in the boardroom. It was a great couple of hours being in the same room as some of these people with a wealth of experience having led truly global giants (I am sure the few other MBA students who were fortunate to be in there must have felt the same). A really engaging post dinner conversation gave insight into their minds and views from where they are at.

A senior director on the boards for a lot of big companies made a point with regards corporation’s role in sustainable business. He talked about an example of how while in an African country he was helping out with a hospital which was trying to arrange for drugs which would help treat small kids with AIDS. It was a battle to arrange for the infrastructure and distribution to get the drugs sent from the big nations to this small interior place in Africa. Then he walked out of the hospital that evening and was surprised to see major cola drinks easily available. The obvious question was if there could be a network of distribution for the colas, how is it that something as critical as life saving drugs does not find its way there? Should corporates not play a role?

An extremely logical counter argument provided was that there is a difference between philanthropy and tax!!! Corporates are there to do what they do best. To create value, make wealth, re-invest, increase employment, improve economies and then help in ways they can. But to expect them to do what is actually a goverment or the UN’s job would lead to a scenario which takes business away from doing their job and doing something which is not in their expertise! There is a situation where we almost start believing that the corporataion is obligated (a la tax) to do what is the core responsibility of government!

Somehow that thought process of the distinction between philanthrophy and tax just struck a chord …

Also had a wonderful wonderful dinner at Pushpaks and Alka’s (yup if you are following my blog, I had a great one last sem too at their place). WE were celebrating republic day of India. That explains the patriotism in the snaps..:-). As is usual at their place — great food n good times! And the weekend weather has just been SPECTACULAR. I know it wont last tho….

I shall leave you guys with that. But from now on, shall be extremely regular as before…

Next week’s menu: more bad weather, 3 projects, talk by founders of Netfinder and the Big Issue, dinner with CEO of the Big Issue, black tie dinner at Oxford Cambridge club with Oxford Business Alumni and much more!!!

Shout out to dear friend nbf..happy bday dude!

I love my college Harris Manchester. I think the right word for it is “quirky”— it’s filled with smart and kind characters and it’s a great fit for me. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve spent only a tiny fraction of time there compared with hours upon hours spent at the Business School, but whenever I do make it to the college for a meal or an event, it’s always a great experience.

My favorite thing about the college is the amazing people you meet and (even better) they are people who look at you funny when you use B-school words like “value added” and “normal distribution” and “brand recognition.” It’s a great reality check. So far, I’ve met an internationally acclaimed badminton player, a teacher studying the best way to teach theology to kids, a trial lawyer who’s decided to come back to uni after 20 years to get a masters in history, a wine connoisseur, an opera singer, a Latin-speaker, and an elite tennis player. One guy I met was in a band that hit it big at 16. He’s already experienced the rise and fall of his own UK rock band before returning to study at the ripe age of 21. Wow.

It would have been great to live in, but my husband (I’ll call him Tyler from now on) is here in Oxford for the year, and the college doesn’t offer “partnered” housing. (If you’re looking, several colleges do—you just have to do some searching!) We’re living in an apartment near SBS, which is working out great, and we try to make it to the college at least once a week for formal dinner or other events (they host concerts, lectures, parties, etc). Tyler is actually playing on the college football team and has made more friends there than I have, which is great because he introduces me to people!

We had our Christmas dinner the other night, and after a tasty meal and several glasses of wine the entire faculty table stood up, donned Santa hats, and sang us all a Christmas carol. I love this place.