Between Graduation and EMBA 2010 one more weekend left….

After May 8th and 9th class, there is only one more week end left. The final three courses in this semester are Cornell management game, corporate governance and private equity project.

Corporate Governance final was completed last week end. Every one in the class came out and said that here goes the one last exam before graduation. Corporate Governance professor Robert Swieringa is a board member of GE. During the course he was able to provide several real life scenarios he dealt with part of corporate governance.

One day in the corporate governance class we were discussing Harvard business school Al Dunlop Sunbeam case. In the back of class Cornell management game professor Jerome Hass was sitting and observing the discussion. End of the discussion Prof. Hass described his interaction with Al Dunlop in a dramatic and fascinating manner. It was very interesting and also provided an insight about the individuals we discussed in the case.

Major topic discussed between classmates this week is graduation. The graduation is on May 29th in Ithaca. Most of the class is coming to the ceremony. Every one is exited about all the free time they are going to get after the class.

During last two years, we had seen classmates move on to bigger and better roles. We had seen entrepreneurs budding out from class of 2010. Over all, every one started as students and leaving as a life long friends. It is very interesting experience. Management education is entirely different than any other course. You will get an opportunity to see inside the minds of CEOs and board members to understand how they handled specific challenges. Overall this program balanced between management and financial related courses.

I am happy and proud to be part of Cornell Johnson School. I will write back one more time before my graduation.

Life is short, enjoy every moment of it!!!

Final residency in Ithaca.....

Week of Jan 11, 2010 is the final week of residency in ITHACA for EMBA2010. Comparing all four residency week, this week was the hardest of all. We had several deliverable some of them are individual assignments and some of them are team assignment. Most of my classmates are counting number of weeks to graduation already.

The weather in Ithaca was surprisingly better compare to single digits we had during last winter residency. The room I stayed in Statler was facing the Sage Hall and Cornell Bell tower with amazing view of finger lake valley. Sometimes during the late night studies, I just open the screen on my room to see the beautiful view of the tower and the valley.

Two papers taught during residency are supply chain management and financial statement analysis. The financial statement analysis professor Bhojraj is also manages the Johnson Cornell Cayuga fund. He showed us the parker center where students manage the fund. I should appreciate Johnson school for creating a Parker Center. This is like on the job schooling. Parker center has everything required for an investment banker, hedge fund manager or a mutual fund manager including software, hardware and real-time market data feeds. Predecessors to Prof. Bhojraj are managing 100 Million plus funds now and I am sure he will also move on to manage bigger investment units in the near future.

Usually during residency week we go out for Dinner. Due to high volume of school work, we could not go out for dinner except couple of days during this 4^th residency week. After several long hours in Sage hall (Johnson school building), the seven days felt like a month. Finally when we left Cornell campus on Sunday, we were completely exhausted and sleep deprived.

9 more weekends....And 18 weeks left in the program.....

After the residency, the first weekend class started on Jan 30^th in Palisades. Two more papers started this week end. Classmates were busy with identify and finalizing their private equity projects.

One of my classmates Tony arranged an ongoing racquetball tournament. I heard that Tony, Shireen and Omer are the leaders in this week. Hope to see more in the coming weeks.

After a small break during holidays, school work started in full swing again. In the remaining 9 weekend, one is down and 8 more to go....

Thanks for visiting my blog, see you all in couple of weeks.

Thanks

Patham

Finally seeing light at the end of the tunnel....

December 5th and 6th we had our final week end class for 3rd semester. This week end is international project presentation week.

As I mentioned before our classmates analyzed wide verity of topics. Some of the topics covered in the international projects are energy, health care, finance, travel, vacation and leisure.

Based on the presentation, I could see that teams considered every thing from political environment, culture of the people, credit risk and anything relevant to business to conclude whether the proposed business model is feasible or not.

Previous weekend in Palisades, we had an international project trip photo presentation in the eBar. It was lot of fun watching everyone's trip photos in the big screen.

Now that there is only one semester left, every one agreed in our class that they can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Some of my classmates are excited and looking forward to complete the course in five months. Some of them are already worried about leaving the school in 5 months and missing Palisades, eBar and Saturday night dinners in restaurants around Palisades.

Our residency weekend for fourth semester starts in four weeks (2nd week of January) in Ithaca. Last three trips to Ithaca were lot of work and lot of fun too. Ithaca is my kind of place, it is very beautiful. Mountains, water falls, tall trees and winding rivers, I can go on and on.

During 3rd residency, we had a party at Dean Joe Thomas's house. His house is on the river facing west. We watched the sunset sitting on his deck. I could still remember the amazing view of sunset from the mountain across the river and the water reflecting like gold from evening sun. Mrs. Thomas is very good host. She shared lot of little fun story about the house and their experience in Ithaca.

We received the 4th residency course materials during the last class weekend. We already have to complete three deliverables before Jan 10th. The third semester leadership development course also has one final deliverable before the holidays. After the first semester, you get use to all these deliverables and you know how much time you need to spend and when. Even though these deliverables lingers back of your mind, it no longer creates anxiety.

It is a holiday season. Wish you all very happy holidays.

I will try to post another blog before New Year if time permits.
If not, Wish you all a very happy and successful new year 2010.


Looking forward to see you all in my blog soon

Best regards,
Patham

Our international project trip

October is an international project travel month for EMBA 2010. Most of our classmates travelled directly from Palisades right after international finance final and couple of teams travelled week after. Some of the projects taken by our classmates are very impressive and relevant to current pressing world issues. One of such project is a smart grid project which is in the news multiple times this month. Some of you may know, President Obama’s administration announced to spend 3.7 billion stimulus money on the smart grid technology.

Our team also travelled the same day after the international finance finals to India. It was a long 15 hours direct flight from Newark, NJ to Delhi, India. After the long flight, we had the first meal at a roadside Dhaba somewhere in between Delhi and Chandigarh highway. The food was delicious. After the meal I realized that how much I missed those Indian spices. Each trip to India, I could see the country's infrastructure is slowly but studiedly improving. Our blackberry worked everywhere, highways are getting better and the wireless networks are amazing. Other than numerous Indian television networks most of the international networks are also available now (like CNN, CNBC, Bloomberg and all other premium movie channels). Even though roads are improving, it is still long way to go.

Part of our project, we interviewed several industry leaders and CEOs to understand the potential of outsourcing pharmacovigilance to India. Even though we live in the electronic communication world, still there is no replacement for face to face meetings. During these meetings, we are able to understand strategy and vision of individual CEOs. For the interview and the presentation, we used material from Vithala Rao's marketing course, advance business strategy course and other finance papers.

After these meetings, we had some time to visit family and friends. October is holiday time in India and the festival is called Diwali (Festival of light). It is a best time to visit family and friends. I had been living aboard for more than 15 years now. We rarely get time to visit family during festival time because of kid's school schedule and work. I really enjoyed this trip and missed my family back in USA.

Our trip was great success. All meetings went beyond our expectation and the information collected in these meetings are very useful. After a useful trip and Diwali celebrations, we are back in US and now it is time to focus on final deliverables for the third semester. There is only three more weekend classes left in this semester and the volume of deliverable from now to end of semester are so many. I could see myself sitting in long meetings with team mates and studying long hours in the next three to four weeks.

Fall is a wonderful time of the year, the trees are beautiful with multiple colors and the holiday season is around the corner.

Good luck with everything. See you all in couple of weeks in my blog.

Thanks
Patham

Welcome Patham Muthuvelayutham

I grew up in a small town located in south Indian state of Tamil Nadu. I received both my Bachelor and Masters in computer science from Bharathidasan University – Bishop Heber College. My professional life started 18+ years back as a programmer in a manufacturing company in Chennai, India and had an opportunity to work with software companies, insurance companies and major financial firms. Currently working in JPMorgan Chase global derivative services division as an executive director and managing work force around the world.

Working in Wall Street during this (2008-2009) financial turmoil is challenging, however the experience and knowledge gained during this crisis is valuable and it will prepare you for life. I always believe in education and got several professional certifications like PMP during these past 18 years. In order to expedite my growth in corporate ladder, I realized that I need a good business degree from a well recognized university. It has been little more than a year with Cornell EMBA program and it is an eye opener for me. The courses taught part of this program so far are very valuable and the concepts learnt in this program can be used immediately on the job. Attending an MBA program with a full time job, family and two kids is demanding. I am very thankful to my wife and kids for working around my busy schedule between work and school.