Only, it's not a party. But they are not here to interact with and gain gyan from NRI tycoons like Swraj Paul and Bob Harilela, guests at the Indian Merchants Chamber's India Calling conference. They are here to check if India's first 'global business school' can catapult them to the helm of business empires across the world. Professor Sumantra Ghoshal of the London Business School, who is also the founding dean of the upcoming Indian Business School in Hyderabad, is in his element. Organisers had expected that the session would see about 150 participants.
Expectations go awry.
The Rooftop Rendezvous hall is jam-packed. Folding his shirt-sleeves neatly up to his elbows, Ghoshal tells the crowd that the ISB is a business school with strong ties with the J L Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, and support from some of the leading corporations in the world, including 21 Fortune 500 companies. The ISB programme has been designed and will be conducted by faculty from Kellogg, Wharton, Stanford, London Business School and other leading business schools. Ghoshal climbs down the dais and paces up and down the aisle, mic in hand. He converts the questions into opportunities to share his vision of the business of education in the 21st century Asia.