ArdorComm Media Bureau
September 2, 2026
Q: Could you tell us more about your institution and the kind of education you offer?
A: We are very focused on specialised education for luxury brand management. When I say luxury brand management, people get really confused, but a simpler way to understand is that we produce people who can serve brands ranging from a Rolls-Royce to a Rolex.
We focus on the elite class of India because our firm belief, my belief, is that the rich in India should spend within India, and we must make the environment and the atmosphere conducive for them to buy within India. India is the fastest-growing economy. Today, we are the fifth-largest economy in the world. There is a rising GDP and rising premiumisation.
Young people don’t drive a Maruti anymore; everyone drives an Audi or a BMW because of various reasons. But it’s also a reflection of the growing economic upliftment of the whole country.
With the growing upliftment of the economic scenario, there is going to be a demand for things good in life, better things in life. But no one is servicing them.
The rich, or the people who are buying apartments for ₹200 crores in Gurgaon, spend their money overseas. They are not spending in India only because the service is lacking.
India is importing the brands, India is importing the products, India is importing the environment and the merchandise. But what do you do with people?
In my long years in the formative years of India’s luxury retail industry, I realised that I could bring everything except the people. I had to get down on the floor to train people, and then I realised, why don’t I create a talent pool for the industry?
That was the motivation and the concept behind my business school. Over 14 years, we have evolved and, as I said on the panel, in the last three years we tied up with a skill university to make it a degree under the UGC system because we started under the NSDC framework rather than the UGC framework.
But now that things are getting merged, it was the opportune time for us to move into a degree formation from a PGP. Not that we don’t do PGP; we continue to do a PGP also.
So, we are not a group of institutions but very unique, very focused and very specialised. But proud to say, in 14 years, we have got some 5,000 students in the trade.
The students are not only full-time MBA students, but they are students from corporate training and online education. We have now progressed into tying up with other institutes to offer our online 20 hours of specialised education to other streams of MBA programmes. That’s what we plan.
Q: Is it a traditional MBA, or are you complementing it with new-age technologies in alignment with the vision of Digital Bharat?
A: It’s a combination. We keep the industry in core focus. As all industries are becoming more technologically savvy, I would say COVID was the turning point.
During COVID, I would say that we were the first ones in the world to bring in a programme called “Digital Disruption of Luxury.”
Being from the industry, I’m very well connected. I was able to talk to people in Milan, Paris, New York and Tokyo as to what’s happening to the luxury industry there.
The challenge was that people were completely flabbergasted because technology was being dumped on them. They did not know how to handle the technology.
While innovation was happening, like now AI is being the topic of discussion, the disruption started coming in during COVID. The talent, like teachers, were not ready to handle Zoom. Likewise, the service industry people were not ready to handle the technological disruptions.
So, what is the disruption? How does it need to be tackled? We brought a 50-hour programme back then, and this year we introduced a 20-hour programme of AI in luxury.
How is AI disrupting the luxury businesses? That’s already a part of the programme. So, we try to be innovative and be the first to come up with relevance to the employment space of the particular student.
Q: Forums like this, where we have representation from preschools to schools, higher education, skills, corporate and government, how do they help the overall community?
A: I think it’s very important that young people like you are bringing, as you said, the governance, the stakeholders and the students together. You are going to below K-12 as well.
Basic education starts at the nursery school level. So, if education can be tied up or skilling can be tied up at that level, you will get a better student going upward.
I think it’s very, very important that there is a transparent dialogue between all the stakeholders because they are operating in their own silos.
So, I appreciate what you’re doing, and that’s one of the reasons I support your endeavour.
Q: Lastly, as we complete five years, what message would you like to give ArdorComm Media on its fifth anniversary?
A: As I said, I admire what you’re doing. It takes a lot of guts today. It is not easy to continue doing entrepreneurship. People launch a startup and they fold up before they can get into year two.
So, if you’ve crossed five years, as a fellow entrepreneur in the academic space, I can say it is very, very tough. We have spent 14 years and we’re still struggling. So, I have no qualms in owning that.
It’s very difficult to keep yourself afloat and keep the motivation high. So, if you’re doing both of it, well, welcome to the gang. Wish you all the best.