Ajay Banga’s nomination to lead the World Bank has once again put the 63-year-old Indian-American in the public eye. The former chief executive of Mastercard is one among the long list of Indian-origin leaders at some of the world’s biggest companies - but Indian roots are not all that Banga has in common with Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, and Shantanu Narayen, CEO of Adobe.
Ajay Banga, Satya Nadella and Shantanu Narayen are all former students of the Hyderabad Public School.
Hyderabad Public School, or HPS, as it is called, also counts Fairfax Financial CEO Prem Watsa, senior diplomat Syed Akbaruddin, beer baron Karan Bilimoria, former Wipro CEO TK Kurien and actor Ram Charan among its alumni, to name just a few.
The school teaches students to think outside the box and be creative, HPS Governing Body member Marri Aditya Reddy told Mumbai Mirror in a 2017 interview, noting that the success of its illustrious alumni inspires younger generations to dream big.
“You do not find a single HPS student lacking confidence,” claimed Narasimha Reddy, who heads the Ramanthapur branch of Hyderabad Public School. “We encourage them to participate in stage activities from their class I, to be bold and confident and to mingle with others through sports, games and extracurricular activities,” he said, adding that learning at the school was not confined to textbooks.
These sentiments were echoed by Dr Skand Bali, former principal of the Hyderabad Public School. “For us, the overall development of a child is very important, we take academics, sports, co-curricular activities very seriously. We have introduced agriculture and entrepreneurship in school. It is very important for a child to have holistic development in every field,” Dr Bali told ET NOW in a 2020 interview.
Hyderabad Public School was established as Jagirdar College by the seventh Nizam of Hyderabad in 1923. Originally meant as an educational institute for the aristocratic and the elite, it was renamed Hyderabad Public School after the abolition of the zamindari system in 1950.
The school has produced CEOs, business leaders, diplomats, civil services officers, actors and politicians for decades. Besides Satya Nadella and Ajay Banga, its past pupils include Lok Sabha MP Asaduddin Owaisi, actors Ram Charan, Akkineni Nagarjuna, Vivek Oberoi and Rana Daggubati, former Andhra Pradesh CM Kiran Kumar Reddy, Miss World Diana Hayden and cricket commentator Harsha Bhogle.
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