Mahesh Sriram is founder of of I-India, an Chennai based Leadership Development and Innovation Services Company for Multinational Companies.
After doing his B.Com from Loyola Chennai he began pursuing his passion for Indology by linking conservation of natural and cultural heritage of India with the needs of tourism and eduction industry. Witnessing the mistrust and conflict between various stake holders such as NGO’s, Forest Department, Culture Department, Universities and Businesses, way back in 1991 he convened a civil society of a UN Charter and presented an action paper to Government of India. The Government empowered him to bring stake holders with conflicting priorities together and develop a national policy on sustainable and inclusive development of tourism and hospitality industry.
Thereafter he began his entrepreneurial journey by promoting Indology based study tours, field research and sourcing of art and craft. The complexity of his subject (Indology) and the learning needs of his customers who were usually foreign scholars, study groups, documentary film makers and civil societies, made him an expert in experiential learning – a method of teaching by engaging with society, interacting with people, observing environment and brainstorming solutions. He spent many years travelling across India and building capacities of teachers and employees of American Universities, Museums, Governments and UN.
About 10 years ago he was approached by Professor Vijay Govindaraja of TUCK School of Business at Dartmouth College (Ranked # 3 EconomicThinker in the World) to develop an experiential learning program based on his management concept called “Reverse Innovation” – a practice for MNC’s to participate in inclusive development of emerging economies, capture new learnings and migrate them to developed economies.
With TUCK School of Business at Dartmouth College as his partner for academic programs, Mahesh works with world renowned thought leaders and faculty to adapts, co-creates and implement emerging market curriculums in India for TUCK Masters and Executive Education Programs such as Global Leaders 2030, TUCK MBA and TUCK Masters in Health Care Deliver Sciences. Together with VG and by himself Mahesh has designed and delivered leadership prorgrams for more than 750 business leaders (CEO’s, Executive Leadership Teams, their Direct reports or Teams sponsored by CEOs ) of a dozen MNC’s, including 2 fortune 10’s, 5 fortune 200 and 2 of India’s top 10. His interventions have helped over 50 MNC ALP teams in Banking, Material Sciences, Health Care, Nuclear Energy, Power Conversions, Oil and Gas, Aviation, Consumer Goods, Farm Equipments, Automobile, IT, TELCO, Retail, Water, Pharma and Non Profit.
Prior to I|India Mahesh worked for economically inclusive and ecologically sustainable development of India through tourism and community initiatives.
Read more about the others here: Bhairavi Jani | Ejji K Umamahesh | Mahesh Sriram | Venkat Nagarajan
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