FIIB, New Delhi, brought together its advisors, board members, alumni and industry partners for an evening of ideas on what is changing in leadership, enterprise and management education, and on the business school FIIB is building next.
On 9 October 2026, FIIB opened its Vasant Vihar campus to more than 50+ leaders from across industry and its wider community for the FIIB Collective. The evening was designed as something other than a formal institutional event: a space where the people who have shaped FIIB’s journey could meet one another, exchange perspectives and see where the school is headed.
Three Perspectives on AI, Leadership and Responsible Business
The Conversation opened with three short provocations, each from a very different vantage point.
Manish Khetarpal, Co-founder and Managing Partner, WaterBridge Ventures, and Member of FIIB’s Board of Governors, asked “What Are the Trees Telling Us About the Forest?” Drawing on an investor’s close view of founders, consumers and businesses, he examined how small signals on the ground can reveal larger shifts before they show up in macro data, and why leaders need to move between detail and the big picture.
Saurabh Mittal, Co-founder, QYON, and Member of FIIB’s Academic and Business Advisory Council, asked “What Happens After Everyone Has AI?” He looked at where differentiation comes from once having AI is no longer an advantage in itself: people, workflows, organisational design, judgment and leadership.
Prof. Anica Zeyen, Professor of Entrepreneurship and Inclusion, Royal Holloway, University of London, and Advisor to FIIB’s Center for Responsible Management, asked “What Does Responsibility Look Like on Monday Morning?” She approached responsible management as a source of performance rather than an obligation, and looked at what a responsibly trained manager does differently in an ordinary working week.
“You Are Not Our Guests”: Building an Industry-First Business School
Dr. Radhika Shrivastava, President and CEO, FIIB, drew the three talks together. “The boundaries are blurring,” she said: between the big picture and the small signal, between human judgment and artificial intelligence, and between doing well and doing good.
She proposed blurring one more, the boundary between the classroom and the workplace. Too often, she noted, industry meets a business school as a guest, seeing the finished product only at the placement table. FIIB’s aspiration is to be an industry-first school, one that brings industry “into the kitchen” while learning is still taking shape.
She invited those present to be part of that school: by mentoring, teaching or co-teaching, bringing live business problems and projects, opening their organisations to visits, and turning their experience into research through FIIB’s Executive Doctoral Program. “Guests come for the wedding,” she said. “Hosts stay for the marriage.”
The Human Advantage with Papa CJ
Papa CJ, Educator, executive coach and global comedian, then led an interactive keynote on The Human Advantage, exploring the human skills that grow in value as technology takes on more of the work. As AI makes information and analysis easy to come by, the qualities that become scarce are human ones: curiosity, empathy, presence of mind and the ability to connect with people.
He made the case through conversation instead of a lecture, inviting the audience to respond and take part, and reminded the room that the most valuable professionals will be those who pair technology with these skills.
A Community Invested in What Comes Next
As conversations continued over dinner and live music on the lawn, the evening returned to the invitation Dr. Radhika Shrivastava had made earlier. “The business school of the future doesn’t end at the campus gate,” she said. “Its boundaries are defined by the people willing to think with it, challenge it, experiment with it, and build with it. That is the FIIB Collective.“
She closed with a hope for everyone in the room: “You are not our guests tonight. You are part of the school we are trying to build. And I hope, over time, you will also come to think of this as your Collective.”
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