Shreevats
Jaipuria
Vice Chairman, Seth M. R. Jaipuria Schools & Jaipuria Institute of Management
What did you want to be growing up?
A builder of something that outlasted me. Running schools, it turns out, is exactly that — only the payoff arrives twenty years later.
The leader who shaped you?
Seth M. R. Jaipuria — for proving that affordable, high-quality education is the most patient form of nation-building.
Lucknow morning, your order?
Kachori-aloo with a cup of chai. Four years at NYU, and nothing in New York ever quite measured up.
Describe your current role
As Vice Chairman of the Jaipuria Group, I sit at the intersection of two missions — 50 Seth M. R. Jaipuria Schools across India and four AICTE-approved business schools in Lucknow, Noida, Jaipur, and Indore. Day to day that means working with principals, directors, and policy bodies, keeping the institution ambitious about academics and honest about outcomes — and making sure 45,000 students and 2,500+ teachers never feel like numbers on a spreadsheet.
What role does institute culture play in your work?
Culture is the only thing that scales when buildings, batches, and balance sheets keep changing. We went from one school in Lucknow in 1992 to fifty campuses in the last nine years — that only worked because every Jaipuria campus is unmistakably Jaipuria the moment you walk in. Affordable excellence, respect for the teacher, and a relentless focus on the student's future. Those aren't slogans; they're the lens every hiring, curriculum, and capex decision goes through.
From Struggles to Smiles
Highs and lows of the journey
The high is watching first-generation MBA students from a Tier-2 or Tier-3 town walk into roles they didn't think were available to them — that's the whole point of what we do. The lows are the years where you invest in faculty, infrastructure, and accreditations long before the market rewards you for it. Education is a slow business; the compounding only shows up a decade later. You have to be okay with that.
What do you love beyond the boardroom?
Policy conversations — through PHD Chamber's Education Committee, CII, FICCI ARISE, and YPO. I'm convinced India's next big leap is in school and higher education reform, and I'd rather be in the room helping shape it than watching from outside. Off the clock, it's family, travel, and an unapologetic afternoon with a stack of business biographies.
Selected Talks
"Build institutions, not headlines. The schools that matter twenty years from now are the ones nobody tried to make famous in year one."
