Pilani Pioneers: Inspiring success stories of 25 BITS Pilani grads

Gaurav Mandlecha and Durjai Sethi, alums of BITS Pilani - one of India's most prestigious engineering schools, decided to write a book profiling 25 of the most proficient businessmen and women the college has thrown up in its rich history

The attempt itself, to profile people across diverse categories, from tyre-making to gift-card selling to startup investing, is an audacious one, because the 23-year-old authors themselves are new to the business world, professionally at least, with barely three years of work experience.

Yet Pilani Pioneers is an interesting attempt to know more about some of India's eminent business personalities, and track down the role of the institution they all attended, in Pilani, Rajasthan (and in some cases, the newer Goa campus).

The authors have picked out 25 leaders who almost cover the Indian economy in some sense- sectors covered include travel, technology, financial services, consumer products, retail, and energy. For anyone interested in Indian business, there are many familiar names- Onida's Gulu Mirchandani, BigBasket's Hari Menon, Tata's Harish Bhat and Alvarez and Marsal's Nandini Chopra among them. There are lesser known ones too, Pensando System's Prem Jain, Dailyninja's Sagar Yarnalkar, or Goodera's Abhishek Humbad.

The effort is commendable because profiling 25 people across industries is not an easy one. It needs you to understand each of their industries, the nitty-gritties of that industry, and their individual quirks and motivations.

The Pilani Pioneers: Inspiring Success Stories of 25 BITS Pilani GraduatesBy Gaurav Mandlecha and Durjai SethiPublisher: Pan Macmillan Available on Amazon