Need of the Hour: Product Leaders, Institute of Product Leadership Launches in India

BANGALORE, June 26, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --

India's First B-School for Technology Managers, Institute of Product Leadership Launched an Executive Post-Graduate Program in Product Leadership

As part of the launch of the Executive Post-Graduate Program in Product Leadership, Institute of Product Leadership organised a seminar on "Why India needs More Product Leaders?" The event was held at The Paul, Outer Ring Road, Domlur on June 23, 2012.

The discussion dwelled on how senior engineering professionals need to develop more product mind-set and skillsets especially those working in "IP" based product and services' companies. Several product R&D executives spoke at the event - Sanjeev Kumar, Head R&D, Informatica India; Sharad Sharma, Executive Council, NASSCOM; Ramkumar Narayanan, VP of Product Management, Yahoo India; Srinivasan S, Head of R&D, Alcatel-Lucent India; Venkataraman V., Director of R&D, Ericsson India and Pari Natarajan, CEO, Zinnov.

"I believe that the Institute of Product Leadership will have the same seminal impact on product industry in India like NID and NIFT have had on design movement in India," said Sharad Sharma from NASSCOM who is also on the Board of Directors of the Institute. "There are about 30,000 managers and two thousand product managers in India-based MNC R&D Centers. Out of these a few hundred product leaders will emerge who will take the product industry to the next level. The Institute of Product Leadership will have a big role in shaping these leaders," he added in his keynote.

Earlier in the year, several senior practitioners came together and formed the Executive Product Industry Council (EPIC) which created the core curriculum and delivery methodology for the institute. Sanjeev Kumar, MD, Informatica India who is the Chairman of EPIC said, "We wanted a practitioner led approach to education with a curriculum that is more relevant to the technology product industry to help our senior engineering managers develop more product mindset and skillsets." During the panel discussion Kumar clarified, "Companies like ours are looking to hire product leaders. They go beyond managing technology projects to synthesizing context from market, competition and customers."

The Institute aims to become the education and research platform to nurture the growing product ecosystem in India. While going over the program details, Pinkesh Shah, a Silicon Valley product executive, now Director of Programs at the Institute said, "All of our programs will be delivered by a blend of practitioners and world class faculty from the US." During Q&A on the topic of local context, he commented, "While the courses will be led by Harvard, MIT case study discussions, we also want to bring in the product success/failure stories from India and use that as a contextual baseline to groom next generation product leaders."

IPL launched an Executive Post-Graduate Program in Product Leaders with 45 courses, delivered on weekends over 5 quarters (15 months) around themes of Customer Connect, Product Design & Innovation, Product Life Cycle Management, Finance, Go-To-Market & Leadership/Soft Skills. While the executive program is focused on senior management roles with 8+ years of work experience, the institute also announced a specialized MBA type of program for 2 years which will be launched next year.

Vishy P., CEO Human Endeavour, Director of Academics at the Institute summarized, "The intent is to go beyond skill building and knowledge enhancement into ultimately creating an experiential learning for senior technology professionals. This is not only relevant and actionable in their current role, but ultimately accelerates their growth personally and professionally."

Click Executive Post Graduate Program in Product Leadership to get the brief on the program.

About Institute of Product Leadership:

The Institute of Product Leadership, India's first B-school for technology managers, was formed in conjunction with Executive Product Industry Council (EPIC) to design and deliver programs for senior product professionals to accelerate their career path transformation from building innovation to productizing it in the global context and that of emerging markets.

Click Institute of Product Leadership to know more.

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Primary Media Contact: Pinkesh Shah, CPM, CPMM, pshah@productleadership.in, 91-900-8003273

Secondary Media Contact: Alok Deep, alok.deep@productleadership.in, 1-713-5688154