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Dr Dipak Jain - Dean, INSEAD - captivates his audience with his talk on 'Living the Global Dream'

Monday, April 12th, 2012

A small-town boy from Tezpur, Assam, experiences his first bus trip when he moves out of his town to get a university education in Guwahati. Little did he imagine that years later, he would be running United Airlines. Not only that, among many other things, he became a professor at the age of 22; got his PhD in Marketing at the University of Texas at Dallas, USA; went on to serve on the boards of many renowned organisations; worked as the Dean of Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, USA for eight years and is currently is the Dean of INSEAD Business School. Dr Dipak Jain has had, until now, an illustrious career spanning nearly three decades both as an educator and as a business school administrator.

"We invited Dean Jain to share his inspiring journey. Students present were also able to directly pose their questions to the Dean," says Vibha Kagzi, Founder of ReachIvy. “Before I talk about living the global dream, I must mention that the best occasion for an educator is to share experiences with other aspirants," he humbly says speaking at theReachIvy Speaker Series last week. "I could have never imagined that I could have reached outside my small town.

What keeps us in going is the commitment our parents have to our education. Indian parents will give up anything for their children's education," opines the Dean. Talking of his journey from his town to university, he says, "I grew up in tough conditions, but I had great teachers who offered a lot in terms of knowledge, and shared resources with the students. I thus had textbooks lent to me every year to learn from." He adds that when resources are scarce, the best thing is to study mathematics since the only resources needed are a pencil and a paper. "After completing my MA, when I was offered a job by the university teaching statistics to MCom students. I was nervous, since was younger (22) than the average age of the class (26). I went to the chair, who advised me, 'when your shadow becomes longer than you, remember the sun is about to set and you will be left on your own. Just be yourself.' It is a sentence that is still very close to my heart and I always practice it," says the man who speaks the way he always has, and says it is up to the others to understand him. "People respect you for who you are, not what you want to be." Dr Jain has an interesting story to narrate about how he embarked on his global journey. In 1982, he came across a research conducted by a professor at University of California in Berkeley and wrote a letter to the professor. The professor had left the university in 1976, but the letter was fowarded to him by the United States Postal Service. The professor wrote back saying that he had changed his research area, and had forwarded Dr Jain's letter to another professor. The new professor wrote back to Dr Jain offering him doctoral candidacy at the University of Texas. Dr Jain was at a loss, since he had no means to take the TOEFL and GRE in Assam. He conveyed that to the professor. Next, he received an admission letter with full financial aid. And imagine, all this via snail mail! After narrating his story, Dr Jain says, "I say never stop trying, you never know when things will work out!" The rest as they say, is history. He narrates two examples of his life that left a mark. When he took over as the Dean of Kellogg, the orientation was on 9/11 of the dreadful year. It was a bad time to head an institute, but he accepted the challenge, and decided to do the best he could for his students. He travelled the length and breadth of the country to ensure great campus recruitment when the students graduated. The other incident happened when the Tsunami struck SE Asia in 2004. Dr Jain was appointed as advisor to the PM of Thailand and after an official visit, decided to take a vacation in Phuket with his family. As luck would have it, they were near the beach when the disaster struck, but due to a wrong turn that he had taken, the lagoon separated them from the sea. The roaring waves collapsed in the lagoon, not even a drop touching them. Once they were out safely, a visitor told Dr Jain that no animals were hurt in the tsunami. Dr Jain's conclusion was "At the time of crisis, people who make the best decisions are those who have the feet firmly on the ground." As a parting shot, he says, "Believe in yourself, believe in your friends. Don't hesitate to ask for help, and don't refuse an opportunity to help others. Keep trying for what you want. Be the best you can!"

ABOUT THE COMPANY

ReachIvy is a premium education and career advisory that helps aspiring students get accepted into top tier educational institutions globally. We have successful admits at MIT, Columbia, Harvard, University of Pennsylvania, London School of Economics, University of Michigan, Oxford, University of Chicago amongst others.

Vibha Kagzi, Founder and CEO, ReachIvy, holds an MBA from Harvard Business School, and a Bachelor of Science from Carnegie Mellon University. She has also pursued courses at the University of California, Berkeley, the London School of Economics and the Indian School of Business.

Our global team of counsellors have also acquired their degrees from premier institutes and are passionate about sharing their experiences with students worldwide.