IIM tag helps executives bag 3 times average salary hike

Ahmedabad, Mar 29 (UNI) The first batch of the Post Graduate Programme for Executives (PGPX) graduates from IIM-Ahmedabad, have bagged plum pay packages with the highest International salary going upto 250,000 USD and the domestic being Rs 60 lakh per annum.

Announcing this at a press conference, IIM-A Director Bakul Dholakia said while 14 graduates have got overseas placements, 42 have gone in for domestic placements.

''Moreover few of them, who were already working abroad, have opted to stay back in India and have clinched profiles and packages that they wanted to work for,'' he said.

While the average domestic salary offered was Rs 24.65 lakhs, average overseas figure was USD 135,000, he said.

Out of the 60-strong batch, 58 students were available for placement. While one of them has opted to retain his Indian Revenue Service post, the other, a British national planned to go back to China, where he had been working earlier, said Prof Arvind Sahay, who takes over as Chairman of the PGPX course.

The course has been designed for executives who have already worked for sometime. The average experience in the outgoing batch was of nine years. The IIM-A was the first to introduce this course last year, while IIM, Calcutta will be starting the course from this year.

''A perusal of the placements shows that those already earning 76,000 USD, have bagged average salary of 135,000 USD,'' said Prof Sahay.

Further elaborating, he said, ''Before joining the course, the average salary of these graduates were in the range of Rs 9 lakh, now it has gone upto Rs 27 to 28 lakh. Most of them have made lateral entries while many were interviewed for posts of Chief Operating Officer or Group Engagement Managers or Head of Strategy.

The profile of the sectors to which the students previously belonged to has changed, he said.

''Before joining, 57 per cent of executives were from IT sector.

This has dropped to 34 per cent. While eight per cent had come in from finance, but now 15 per cent have opted for it. Nineteen per cent have opted for consulting, from where none had come for the course,'' he said.

While for the flagship PGP course, the placements were dominated by investment banks and consulting firms, for the PGPX, only one-third were from these sectors.

Among the companies that came for placements for executives were JM Morgan Stanley, Olam International, Mindtree Consulting, ICICI Bank, Reliance Communications, Reliance Energy, Citibank IBD, Infosys and others.

UNI