MBApreneurs: Entrepreneurs with an MBA Degree, Do you know them?

Updated on June 5, 2014

This article in order to enthuse Entrepreneur feeling in MBA Aspirants, gives you a list of MBApreneurs- Entrepreneurs with MBA degree. These Young Turks have decided to take the route of hard work glory. If they can do it, you can too!

The placement reports of Top B-schools and IIMs every year are showing a great sign for the future as several young minds are rejecting lucrative job offers from MNCs and are focusing on fulfilling their dream.

How many of you join an MBA course with a clear mindset of starting your own business after 2 years?

Probably a very few. We are more interested to buy a house instead of investing in a start up. Let’s admit Indian society and family unit mould you from the starting to work for others. To work for either government organization or a private companies. Very rarely you will find a change in this generational thought process in Indian family except the famous entrepreneur clan of marwaris’ or Punjabis’ who have been doing business from decades.

But, slowly and steadily, this Entrepreneurship is becoming a buzz word. The placement reports of Top B-schools and IIMs every year are showing a great sign for the future as several young minds are rejecting lucrative job offers from MNCs and are focusing on fulfilling their dream. They don’t want to work for anybody. They want to serve the society, bring a change and yes of course be the owner and earn big bucks.

Earlier in India, people were only interested in Indian entrepreneurs who came from the US. Now, they are more interested in Indian entrepreneurs coming from India. Entrepreneurship is beginning to be the preferred choice as compared to earlier when it wasn't considered the best choice. We need to have enabling provisions which encourage investing in a startup instead of in buying a house.

This article in order to enthuse Entrepreneur feeling in MBA Aspirants, gives you a list of MBApreneurs- Entrepreneurs with MBA degree. If they can do it, you can too! Inspite of our B-schools not being the hotbeds of great ideas of innovation and entrepreneurial activity still these Young Turks have decided to take the route of hard work glory.

This article will try to provide you a fresh list of entrepreneurs who are making mark for themselves in Indian corporate world.

- Pranay Chulet, Founder and CEO, Quikr

Armed with an IIT and IIM Degree, Pranay Chulet is dominating the Local Commerce in India with his venture Quikr. He is a co-founder and the CEO of Quikr, India's largest online and mobile classifieds portal.

Paranay Chulet attended the Kendriya Vidyalaya in Dariba, Rajasthan. He holds an undergraduate degree in chemical engineering from Indian Institute of Technology Delhi and an MBA from Indian Institute of Management Calcutta. After graduating from IIM Calcutta, Chulet joined Procter & Gamble in a brand management position. He left P&G in 1997 to join Mitchell Madison Group as a management consultant. He later worked in a variety of roles in Walker Digital, Pricewaterhouse Coopers and Booz Allen Hamilton.

Chulet started his first entrepreneurial venture, Excellere, in 2007. In 2008, he founded Kijiji India, which was later rebranded as Quikr. Quikr has raised over $150 million in funding from private equity and investment firms.

- Sarathbabu Elumalai, FoodKing

He is an Indian entrepreneur, social worker and politician. He is an alumnus of Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad and Birla Institute of Technology and Science (Pilani). After completing his management education, Sarathbabu decided to become an entrepreneur with the aim of providing employment to as many people as possible. In 2006, he started his venture "Food King Catering services Private Limited" with a capital of Rs 2000 to cater to banks, software companies and educational institutions. It is now located in 6 locations around India with a turnover of 8 crore. The first unit of FoodKing was opened by Mr. Narayana Murthy, founder of Infosys.

- Rohit Pande CEO & co-founder of Classteacher Learning Systems

Rohit Pande is an Indian entrepreneur & co-founder/CEO of Classteacher Learning Systems. Rohit holds a B.Tech degree from IIT Delhi and an MBA from IIM Calcutta. Rohit received Bachelors in Technology from Indian Institute of Technology Delhi and MBA from Indian Institute of Management Calcutta. Prior to founding Classteacher Learning Systems in 2000, Rohit worked for a couple of years with Accenture in India before starting his entrepreneurial venture. Rohit is the CEO and co-founder of Classteacher Learning Systems, mentors the product development team at Classteacher and is involved with expanding the thought leadership evolved through a decade of research. The company is known for Classpad Educational Tablet, Digital Interactive Learning & Assessment for K-12

- Venkat Viswanathan, CEO, LatentView Analytics

Venkat Viswanathan is an Indian entrepreneur and business executive. He is the founder and Chairman of LatentView Analytics Corporation. LatentView is a data analytics consultant and data management company which delivers analytics solutions largely to clients in financial services, consumer goods and retail sectors. The company is headquartered in Chennai, India and has 5 offices across India, United States and Singapore.

Viswanathan holds a degree in engineering from Indian Institute of Technology Madras and an MBA from Indian Institute of Management Calcutta. He worked at Essar Group, ICRA Limited and Cognizant Technology Solutions before founding LatentView in 2006.

- K.Chandrasekhar (KC), Founder & CEO, Forus Health Pvt. Ltd

Mr. K. Chandrasekhar completed his Masters of Science and Technology from Birla Institute of Technology & Science, Pilani (BITS Pilani), PGDMM from Annamalai University and Global Manager Program from Indian Institute of Management, Kolkata. Mr. Chandrasekhar was worked in Senior management positions with NXP Semiconductors, Philips , Alliance Semiconductors etc.

Forus develops innovative products combined with comprehensive software solutions to enable not only screening at the patient’s doorstep but facilitate treatment as well. Forus develops affordable technology solutions that can easily be used by a minimally trained technician, thereby making health service accessible and scalable. Their flagship innovation 3nethra is a mass eye pre-screening device + solution – Is a single, intelligent, low cost, non-mydriatic, non-invasive pre-screening ophthalmology device+ solution

- Nalin Khanduri, MD, Great Indian Outdoors

A chemical engineer with an MBA degree Nalin Khanduri had a brief stint with Levers and Reliance Industries before founding Great Indian Outdoors (GIO) in year 2000. GIO is a leading outdoors company on its way to become the first adventure/Outdoors corporate of India. With a huge passion for outdoors and an experience of more than 20 years in wilderness trips, Nalin is as comfortable in the remotest regions of the country as he is in his head office in Gurgaon. Apart from offering programs to individuals and families GIO specializes in value added programs for corporate and schools.

GIO is literally born and brought up in the Himalayas and now head quartered in the hill town of Dehradun in Garhwal Himalayas. Their familiarity & knowledge of the region ensures smooth running of all their trips.

- Anupam Gupta, Founding Member, Mixpo

Anupam was part of the founding team of Mixpo and directed the vision, strategy and execution as CEO from 2007 to 2013. Mixpo runs online software that converts and distributes video across mobile, tablet and desktop formats.

The company was co-founded by Anupam Gupta, an alumnus of Birla Institute of Technology & Science and Cornell University. Before Mixpo, Anupam spent eight years at Microsoft in product management and product marketing teams for global online services: instant messaging, mobile, premium services, blogging/social networking, voice-over-IP and broadband/dialup internet access. He helped scale customer bases and revenue to hundreds of millions worldwide.

Mixpo's vice-president for software development is Salim Hemdani, an MBA from the University of Washington Foster School of Business and alumnus of Visvesvaraya National Institute of Technology in India. The Seattle-based company, founded in 2007, has revenues of $14 million and counts giants like Comcast, NBC and Ford as its clients.

All startups require different skills pertaining to Operations, Marketing & Communications, Finance, Accounting, Strategy and more. An MBA education helps provide the basic foundation that is required by startups in execution. For example, when creating their business plan or raising funds, the founders would certainly have been using their knowledge of Finance to build their financial projections.

The list is endless as there are loads and loads of examples wherein MBA graduates have taken a leap of faith and went on to pursue their dream of starting their business. Doing what they really wanted to do and neglecting any and all the societal pressures.

If you have a dream, an idea which you want to pursue after MBA then doesn’t hesitate. Make the move!

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