Past students of some of India’s reputable B-schools have come together to start a Kolkata-based networking group.
The city is the common link.
The group has people who trace their roots to Kolkata as well as people who are based in the city because of work.
The members include alumni of IIMs, ISB Hyderabad and XLRI, Jamshedpur. The network wants to create “special interest groups” on everything from start-ups and stock investment to mental health.
The first official meeting of the group took place on Sunday which more than 160 people attended.
They have named the platform Antagam, which in Sanskrit means “what has not yet come".
The oldest participant was an octogenarian, the chairman of a Kolkata-based manufacturer in the mining sector that went public last year. He is from the 1968 batch of the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad.
The youngest lot included people who have been out of B-schools for “three to four". years. But for Covid, most of them would have been working outside Kolkata, said the organisers. The work-from-home culture has brought them home.
One of them is a 30-year-old from Baguiati, a consultant with a firm based in Stamford, Connecticut, in the US.
“For people like me, this platform brings career opportunities. I am interested in start-ups and need the right guidance. Plus, it is great to know investors,” said the participant, part of the 2019 batch of IIM Bangalore. He shifted from Gurgaon a couple of years ago.
“Covid has changed the ballgame. We need to think differently about everything, from business to mental well-being. The pandemic has been a catalyst to this initiative,” said one of the organisers, an alumnus of the 2004 batch of IIM, Bangalore.
At the helm of the sales of a Kolkata-based “brick-and-click" FMCG company (that has both physical stores and online presence), the man has been living in the city for the past eight years. He hails from Chennai. He is one of the 30 co-conveners of the forum.
Most of the people this newspaper interacted with said they did not want to be named.