She was one of the first two distinguished alumni to be honoured at the Madras Christian College in 2013.
The other person who was honoured was T.N. Seshan, former chief election commissioner.
Since then, it has been a long journey for Chandrika Tandon, now a trustee of New York University and a board member of the NYU Stern School of Business.
Ms. Tandon’s journey to MCC itself was a struggle, involving a hunger strike before her mother gave in, she recalled. All for a B.Com degree with which she graduated in 1973. But her journey had just begun. She went on to complete an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, and had on hand five or six job offers when she graduated.
The rest is history for Ms. Tandon who is the chair of NYU’s Global council and is a Sterling Fellow at Yale where she serves on the President’s Council of International activities.
The college had invested much into developing a stellar B.Com and later a BBA programme. In 2013, when the idea was mooted, she gifted the college some funds. “From 2008 I had been working with the commerce department. Its ranking had slipped. It was a jewel of a programme. So, we thought of different innovative ways and the ranking improved. I was a cheerleader, I love my college, I love Chennai,” and that was her way of giving back to her alma mater.
She has given the college in excess of one million US dollars and there are additional pledges forthcoming as a challenge grant for the business school as well as innovation and research grants.
“A few years down the line they surprised me saying that we are going to create a business school,” she said adding that it was an incredible gift as her father, grandfather and many cousins were alumni of the college. The business school has been named MCC Boyd Tandon School of Business.
Some of the well-known business educators and her batchmates from IIM-A are on the advisory board that includes Rajeshwari Krishnamurthy, formerly from Great Lakes Institute of Management; Srilata Zaheer, former dean of Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnessota; Sajeev Thomas, Som Mittal and S. Gopal among others.
“We want to make sure that the students we graduate have the curiosity, are grounded in the reality and have the resilience to deal with the change,” she said.
By January 2024, the business school would announce the admission process, she said.
“A business school will not work without an extraordinary group of alumni engagement. We have a fantastic team, and we are investing in this,” Ms. Tandon said.
She has also proposals to create research and innovation prizes for commercially viable ideas.
