The Fresh Brew: Chronicles of Business and Freedom

“The Fresh Brew: Chronicles of Business and Freedom” carries the inspiring life stories of 25 IIM Lucknow Alumni, who charted an independent, entrepreneurial and self-envisaged careers instead of being part of a traditional career path. Some of these worked with leading banks, consulting firms,and marketing and technology firms before they decided that pursuing alternate and independent career was what they were made for. This book is a collection of their experiences and intends to bring out the subtle dilemmas that they negotiated – both personal and professional. The Foreword has been written by Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam, Former President of India.It has been co-authored by Amit Haralalka, a final-year MBA student at IIM Lucknow and Amitabh Thakur, an IPS Officer and Fellow at IIM Lucknow.

Some of the prominent Alumni featuring in this book include:

• BimalPatwari, a Gold Medalist from IIML who quit AF Fergusson to build his own CAD Design Outsourcing firm in the ton of Durgapur
• SatyajitSadanandan  who works with FIFA and lots of other football clubs across the world
• TarunTripathi, who worked with Yash Raj films, was associated with Hum Tum and is now writing a script for a TV Show
• Gayatri Iyer, a multi-faceted  individual who is into international theatre and has sung for over 20 Bollywood movies including Black, Salaam Namaste, etc. ,
• Mayank Shivam, an Ex-McKinsey Consultant who quit his job to create a company focused on rural broadcast media and community radio
• Nishant Saxena who left his Corporate Finance role at Procter & Gamble (P&G) to start Elements Akademia which seeks to narrow the gap between industry and academics in India
• Serial entrepreneur-turned investors like KrishnarajVenkatraman (of Marketics) who now runs his own investment fund and Anand Lunia (who co-founded BrainVisa) and is now Partner at Seedfund and also invests in his personal capacity
• Nitin Das, socially relevant film-maker, who quit his job at Times Group to go to the NY Film Academy and study Digital Film Making
• Murlidhar S – one of the co-founders of the NASSCOM-Award winning Skill-assessment company MeritTrac
• Sudhanshu Sarronwala  who created a company called SoundBuzz in Singapore and sold it eventually to Motorala and is now working with the World Wide Fund for Nature in Geneva
• Ratnesh Mathur who opened a pre-school for kids with his wifeAditi and designs alternate methods of teaching children
• Sumant Bhargava who quit his marketing job at Coca Cola India to develop a chain of multiplexes for Tier-II/III cities in India
• Anjali Mullatti an Entrepreneur who also spearheads the ManjunathShanmugham Trust initiatives – passionately fighting corruption

The book has been dedicated to SatyendraNathDube, the IIT Kanpur alumnus who became a martyr while working in National Highway Authority and Manjunath Shanmugam, the IIM Lucknow graduate, who again sacrificed his life for the sake of principles while working in Indian Oil. The authors have decided to donate a portion of the proceeds of the book to constitute an award named “Fresh Brew Award for Social entrepreneurship”.  

The book is published by Alchemy Publishers, New Delhi and is now available for sale in bookstores across the country.

www.freshbrewbook.com