The Alumni Association of Great Lakes, Chennai come together for an exciting re-union
Chennai: Great Lakes Institute of Management hosted its annual alumni meet recently at the institute’s campus at Manamai. Organized by the Institute and the members of Great Lakes Alumni Association (GLAA), the annual meet ensures to build the alumni community into a stronger movement every year. With the motto “Connect, Create and Communicate”, the GLAA, through its Annual Meet emphasizes on creating a bond between the passed out graduates, existing students and the faculty.
The two-day meet witnessed the participation of more than 350 alumni from various parts of the country. A number of alumni visited the campus with their families making the event all the more interesting. Following an ice-breaker session, the event commenced with an inauguration.
Welcoming everyone at the inauguration, Prof. T.N. Swaminathan, Professor of Marketing & Director – Branding, PR and Alumni Relations at Great Lakes said, “Every passing year, the alumni community of Great Lakes is becoming stronger and I am glad to see the representation from various programs and batches today. We now have a community that has alumni of all the 12 batches of the flagship PGPM program, 11 batches of executive PGXPM program, 5 batches of PGPM – Flex program and 3 batches of 2 year PGDM program that have graduated. We are now over 5000+ in numbers spread across close to 30 countries.” Prof. Swaminathan also applauded the several achievements of the alumni in both corporate sector and entrepreneurship including 50 + start-ups.
Dr. Bala V Balachandran, Founder, Dean and Chairman, Great Lakes Institute of Management expressed his delight over this yearly activity of connecting the vast alumni network of Great Lakes. Pointing out how alumni of Great Lakes have played a major role in making the institute one of India’s top 10, he said he was pleased with the increase in the number of alumni turning into successful entrepreneurs every year. “You are focusing on becoming job creators and thereby making this country and the institute proud”, he said. The Dean also commended the efforts of the GLAA members who have made it to a point to hold periodic regional meets in different parts of the country and abroad. “In the last one year, I had the opportunity to attend the regional meets organized by the alumni in Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chennai, Dubai, Newyork and Singapore. It is heartening to see this kind of commitment from the alumni towards the institute”, he concluded.
Dr. Vaidy Jayaraman, Associate Dean, Great Lakes Speaking about the various developments in the alumni front, Dr. Vaidy pointed out the various initiatives taken by Great Lakes Alumni Association across its regional chapters and how it has helped to enrich professional networking amongst the alumni. He also added that the faculty and the alumni have together contributed towards making Great Lakes a global institute.
Post the inauguration, the event had exciting activities such as stand-up comedy, alternate career choices, Quiz, Travel Talk, Treasure hunt, sports matches and more. The gala dinner in the evening provided a great opportunity to network and had some amazing performances by the students of Great Lakes. The dinner also saw a power talk by Mr. Anantha Ramakrishnan, Vertical Head – EEIT Global Data Insight and Analytics – Ford Motors, Chennai, who shared his expertise on Analytics in a session titled “Analytics impacting business landscape”