In an exclusive interaction with ETEducation, Madan Pillutla, Dean of Indian School of Business (ISB), one of India’s top B-schools and a globally ranked management institution discusses the school’s improved global rankings, its long-term approach to student outcomes, curriculum shifts in the age of AI and ISB’s strong footprint in entrepreneurship and startups.
Q. ISB’s global rankings, including the Financial Times rankings, have improved recently. As the school marks 25 years, what institutional strategies have contributed to this rise?
Madan Pillutla: It’s not any one thing that we do, and we don’t do anything specifically so that we improve in the rankings, which is never the goal of ISB. There are some things that you just have to do right, and eventually some of these rankings will capture those, because they are important.
Two things that rankings pay a lot of attention to are outcomes for students and their long-term career trajectories. Our belief has always been that it is not the short-term outcome that matters; we are very interested in long-term outcomes and careers. From day one, that has been the goal of ISB.
If you look at what the Financial Times evaluates, it rates alumni achievement over time, not just immediate placements. They look at graduates from 2020, 2021, 2022 and track their career growth. Because we have always believed that we are not preparing you just for the placement at the end of the year but for the long term, if you keep doing that well, it will show up in the rankings eventually.
So, we just need to get the boring things right and do them really well. Over a period of time, rankings will catch up. That has always been the goal of the school—do the fundamentals well and consistently.
Q. In the age of AI, how is ISB redesigning its curriculum to ensure students are industry-ready?
Madan Pillutla: This year’s recruitment season was actually a positive surprise for me. One would have thought, with all the doomsday scenarios around AI, that consulting firms would not recruit as much. But it was a bumper year in terms of consulting firms recruiting at ISB not just tech consulting, but consulting firms in general.
From conversations with partners, what I am seeing is that they are themselves trying to navigate what AI will mean. They are not entirely confident about what will happen, but they are hoping that the people they hire – who know how to ask the right questions, will help them navigate the future.
So, if you step back and ask why they recruit from ISB and other top schools, it is because our education is geared towards teaching students to ask the right questions and anticipate what will come later. It is not just about giving them specific tools and skills; it is about preparing them to look at the big picture and understand the future.
The curriculum is always forward-looking. We focus on basic capabilities like critical thinking, judgment, the ability to look at data and see patterns. Alongside that, we also teach them the latest tools whether in marketing or finance knowing fully well that by the time they graduate, those tools may be obsolete. But once they understand this generation of tools, they will be able to pick up the next generation much faster.
Q. Entrepreneurship and startups are gaining prominence in business schools. How is ISB fostering this culture?
Madan Pillutla: Entrepreneurship is one area where ISB clearly has a lead. ISB students are disproportionately represented among startup founders, especially those who have received funding. If you look at unicorn founders and funded startups, you will find strong ISB representation.
Various global lists show the top institutions producing unicorn founders or funders. From India, you will typically see IIT Delhi, IIT Bombay, BITS Pilani and ISB. We are the only business school from India represented alongside leading technology institutions.
So entrepreneurship has always been front and centre of what we do. Even though we are not a tech school, our graduates are very strongly present in the startup ecosystem.
Q. With AI rapidly transforming sectors, how challenging is it to implement AI effectively in education?
Madan Pillutla: In academia, by the time we get around to doing things, it is often slower than other sectors. So education may take some time to adapt. But AI is coming with such rapidity that faculty themselves are looking at it and saying: if AI can do the lecture, then why do I need this lecture?
Everyone is trying to understand how to integrate it meaningfully. We are introducing AI in two main ways. First, AI helps faculty develop new course materials much more rapidly. It allows for role-play simulations and other interactive formats that students really like. We have created a Centre for Learning and Teaching Excellence with experts who will help faculty design such AI-enabled materials.
Second, faculty across disciplines strategy, marketing and others must talk about how AI is transforming business models and organisational interactions. So conceptually, they discuss AI’s impact in the classroom, and at the same time they use AI themselves to enhance productivity and update teaching materials more quickly.
In that sense, AI becomes both the subject of learning and a tool that improves how we teach.
