ISB launches 'CEO auction' for its students

Students can bid for, and work with, a corporate chief for a day

Vivian Mathew, a student of the premier Indian School of Business (ISB), Hyderabad, is elated. Come January 2010, he could be one of the few lucky students to have successfully bid for, and got a full day to work with, a corporate chief of his choice — be it N R Narayana Murthy, co-founder and chief mentor Infosys Technologies or K V Kamath, chairman of ICICI Bank.

His choice will not be restricted. He knows he could pick from other stellar names like Adi Godrej, CMD Godrej Group, Kumar Mangalam Birla, Chairman Aditya Birla Group, Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, CMD Biocon, Deepak Parekh, Chairman HDFC, and Ajay Piramal, Chairman, Piramal Enterprises. And the list will only expand with time.

"We are all extremely excited about the fact that we could get to spend a day with CEOs of such stature. Students are already busy arranging finances from friends and family members since the bidding could be stiff with such well-known names in the list," said Mathew.

ISB has introduced this concept, christened “Shadow a CEO”, to mobilise funds for charity and allow its students to work with the Who’s Who of India Inc for a day. Some 16 CEOs have agreed to participate (see table).

“We came up with the idea as part of our exercise of the joy of giving. We not only want to put the money generated for benefit of the society, but also let our students experience the joy of operating with a CEO for a day,” Ajit Rangnekar, Dean ISB told Business Standard.

The bidding process will include an open auction for the ISB students, which will be conducted online.

It will be open to all students of ISB from September 21 to 23, 2009. The top three bidders for each CEO will be shortlisted. They will be asked to give a Letter of Intent (LOI) explaining why they're bidding for a particular CEO. A panel comprising ISB faculty and administrative members will then review these letters and arrive at a consensus on the most deserving student to shadow the CEO.

After the winners are announced, the CEO can match the amount raised by the students with equal or more and the funds raised from the auction will then go to an NGO of the CEO's choice. The programme will be open till January for the CEOs to give a suitable date for the students.

This year, the programme is open only to ISB students. “We want the bidding process to be absolutely transparent and foolproof so we have kept it open only for our students,” said Rangnekar. But he did not rule out the possibility of opening the programme to students of other institutions later.

He, however, declined to put a number to the amount ISB will raise through the bids.