HBS Offers Seminar in India

Real estate executives seeking a Harvard Business School education can take a seminar in a prime new location this June.

The South Asia Real Estate Seminar, a collaborative effort between the HBS Executive Education Program and the HBS Indian Research Center, will offer a four-day workshop in Hyderabad, India that aims to connect experienced executives in real estate with HBS faculty familiar with current industry research.

Using the Business School’s renowned case study method, the course aims to equip participations with skills that enable them to better evaluate the opportunities and obstacles in South Asia’s booming real estate market.

“Real estate is one of the areas where we think we can help most because it is the largest asset case in the world,” said John D. Macomber, lecturer of business administration at HBS and the seminar’s co-leader.

According to its official description, the seminar is designed for “an elite group of senior executives” such as chief executive officers, presidents, managing directors, and firm partners.

Macomber said that the application process is aimed to ensure that the business leaders will be comfortable around each other and have similar levels of experience.

“The executives bring a lot of practical, everyday experience,” said Rakesh Khurana, associate professor of business administration and an instructor in the real estate seminar. “We have systematic research on how other organizations and countries have tackled the problems they’re facing.”

HBS faculty members involved in the seminar expect that the collaboration will prove to be beneficial not only to Indian executives but to Business School students and faculty as well.

Khurana said the seminar will be an “opportunity to research and develop teaching materials we can bring back to the classroom.”

He added that the seminar is “also consistent with the need to understand globalization and how it is affecting business and society.”

The South Asia Real Estate seminar is the latest of the Business School’s many programs in India. HBS’s Indian Research Center has been conducting research in Mumbai since 2005, and in February, the HBS Executive Education program conducted a seminar on “Building a Global Enterprise in India.”