Satyam to launch 'School of Leadership' next year

To groom company's senior staff at corporate varsity

With an objective of accelerating the process of leadership development within the company and thereby ensuring a clear succession plan, Satyam Computer Services Limited will be launching its School of Leadership next year.

The IT consulting and services major will groom senior associates of the company and identify potential leaders from this base.

Edward S Cohen, senior vice-president for leadership development at Satyam, would head the company's School of Leadership. Prior to joining Satyam, Cohen was founder and strategic leader of a global strategy and technology consulting firm, Booz Allen Hamilton's corporate university.

Addressing the media on Monday, Satyam's founder and chairman B Ramalinga Raju said, "Today we have grown from a million dollar company to one that has a billion dollar run-rate. We are providing services to a large number of customers globally and have reduced our dependence on the US market. Besides, our solutions base has also expanded."

"Success today not only depends on the competencies that we develop but also on the leaders that we create. To address this issue, we are setting up a Satyam School of Leadership (SSL) in Madhapur that will become operational in the middle of next year," Raju added.

Satyam already has a Satyam Learning Centre that has been enabling technical competencies and leadership development within the company. SSL will, according to Raju, accelerate the process of leadership development.

Starting with five per cent of the total employee strength of Satyam across 53 countries, SSL will groom leaders in areas like relationship with various stakeholders, service offerings, projects and processes.

Satyam employs over 25,000 associates as on date. This initiative aims at covering over 10 per cent of the employee base of the company in the coming few years.

According to Cohen, a specific structure for the programme has not been developed as yet, but it will have both classroom sessions as well as web seminars. Besides senior leaders within the organisation, the company is also exploring the possibility of bringing academicians as faculty for SSL.

Satyam will also extend this facility to strategic customers and partners on need basis for "forging strong relationships".