It was tough competition between three leading Business schools of India that offer a specific curriculum on family business management  -  ISB (Hyderabad), EDI (Ahmedabad) and Nirma (Ahmedabad).

The ISB team represented by Ajay Lakhotia and Abhishek Shah won the competition and  runners up were the team of Viten Detroja and Nemil Shah  from Nirma followed by the duo Vikrant kishore and Ankit Chindalia from EDI.

Barclays Wealth Family Business Forum is an interactive knowledge platform that helps place views, perspectives and challenges from all generations handling a business. The forum was launched in order to engage and reach out to the next generation entrepreneurs and therefore build a strong foundation for family business management and succession planning in India.

This program was structured around an inter-collegiate competition where each school was required to solve a case study. The responses were evaluated by executives at Barclays Wealth and the editorial team of Network 18. From the shorlisted entries the two member team representing the school at the finals was decided in  consultation with the B schools.

The finalists were evaluated by an honourable jury of  Mr. N. Balasubramanian, Director if IIFCL;  Madam Grace Pinto, Managing Director of Ryan Group of Institutions; Mr. Senthil Chengalvarayan, President and Editorial Director of Network 18’s Business Media and Mr. Rodney Allen, Managing Director, Barclays Wealth Advisory. 

The Grand Finale of the Barclays Wealth Family Business Forum also saw an interesting panel discussion on ‘Family businesses in intergenerational transition - Opportunities and Challenges’ moderated by Senthil Chengalvarayan. The panellists included renowned business leaders like Ms. Deepali Geonka, Director of Welspun Retail Ltd, Ms. Devita Saraf, Executive Director of Zenith Computers and CEO of luxury technology brand – Vu. Ms. Sunita Ramnathkar, former promoter of Fem Care Pharma Ltd, Mr. Amrish shah, National Leader of the Transaction Tax practice at Ernst and Young India, Mr Shreegopal Kabra, President of the Ram Ratna Group of Industries and Mr. Satya Bansal, CEO, Barclays Wealth

Speaking on the occasion Mr. Satya Bansal, Chief Executive of Barclays Wealth, India said, “We are overwhelmed with the response and acceptance that the Barclays Wealth Family Business Forum received not only from the student community but also from business families. Forums like this help strengthen the level of competencies and knowledge for next generation leaders from family businesses and thereby increase innovative wealth creation and management opportunities especially when most family businesses in India are at the threshold of intergenerational transfer.  

“All students competed admirably today and we were struck by the strong similarities that cut across the teams’ intellect, understanding and skills.  All presented with poise, confidence and conviction and demonstrated a strong level of competitiveness.  The next generation of the family business leaders are well poised to lead the economy to the next era of growth.” Observed, Lakshmi Narasimhan, CEO, Web18.