Kali Prasad Gadiraju, Chairman of EThames Business School and former Regional Managing Partner of EY Hyderabad, is honoured with the Visionary Leader driving innovation in Higher Education Award at the Education Leaders Summit & Awards 2025 recently. The award recognises his pioneering contributions to transforming management education in Telangana through strategic industry partnerships, Gen AI hands-on learning models, and a mission to prepare industry-ready graduates.
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From Boardrooms to Classrooms, Kali Prasad’s mission is to transform Management Education. Consulting giant to campus visionary, he redefined Business School Excellence. He has been championing industry-integrated education. He is the man behind Telangana’s fastest-rising Business School. EThames Business School has set a new benchmark for BBA Education.
EThames Business School ranked top in Hyderabad BBA Education by TBERS’25
Under his leadership, EThames Business School (EBS) has emerged as one of the fastest-rising BBA institutions in South India. In the Times BBA Education Ranking Survey 2025, EThames ranked No. 1 in Placements in Telangana and No. 2 among Private BBA Colleges in Hyderabad.
Kali Prasad brings over 40 years of global consulting experience into academia, blending corporate rigour with academic innovation. At EThames, he introduced the TAP learning model—Theory, Application, Practice—to ensure students graduate with more than just knowledge; they graduate with employable skills, industry insight, and an entrepreneurial mindset.
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Every sector is witnessing disruption, and education is no exception. Across the world, industries are being reshaped by AI, rapid technology adoption, changing consumer behaviour, climate challenges, and geopolitical shifts. Traditional business models are giving way to new ones that are faster, leaner, and more customer-centric. The result: faster, leaner, customer-focused business models. Examples abound — Uber and Ola redefined taxis; Amazon, Flipkart, and Blinkit transformed retail; UPI, Paytm, and PhonePe revolutionised payments; Practo and AI diagnostics are changing healthcare; OYO, Airbnb and MakeMyTrip completely changed the travelling and hospitality industry; Netflix and Spotify disrupted traditional broadcasting; and iTunes disrupted the music industry.
Education is facing a similar disruption. AI tutors (CoSchool), MOOCs (Coursera, edX, Udemy, LinkedIn Learning, SWAYAM), and Gen AI tools (Chat GPT, Perplexity) have made world-class knowledge accessible to everyone on earth. Even then, India produces more than 10 million graduates every year, and about half of them are not employable.
Industry is hungry for specialist skills, but the universities are producing graduates with outdated knowledge. Yet, at the undergraduate level, curriculum innovation remains scarce. Kali Prasad is changing that — leveraging his 40+ years of global corporate experience to reshape education, making it more industry-integrated, future-ready, and impactful.
India is trying to be a 10 trillion dollar economy by 2030. How is that possible when the education industry is producing unemployable graduates?
GDP does not grow on trees; it grows on people. The quality and capabilities of our youth decide the quality and growth of our economy. Kali Prasad says there is an urgent need to disrupt our traditional education models.
“Graduates do not possess employable skills even after obtaining degrees.”
This blunt observation from Dr. C. Mahendra Dev, newly appointed Chairman of the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council, has reignited a nationwide debate about the widening disconnect between higher education and real-world employability in India.
His concern echoes a growing movement led by education innovators like Kali Prasad Gadiraju, who asserts, “Employability is the new literacy. The ability to contribute meaningfully at work is as critical today as reading and writing once were.”
Through a landmark partnership with KPMG in India, EBS integrates real-world business cases, simulations, and practitioner-led instruction into the classroom. Specialisations and master classes taught by industry veterans in business analytics, financial management, supply chain, cybersecurity and social media content, marketing, preparing them to lead from day one.
“Today’s students need more than degrees—they need direction, professional skills, and direct relevance to industry. That’s exactly what we deliver,” says Mr. Kali Prasad.
With India chasing its $10 trillion economic goal, the demand for skilled managers is exploding—and BBA is replacing BTech as the preferred choice for Gen Z students. As Mr.Kali Prasad points out: “Startups, MSMEs, and MNCs need skilled managers, not just coders. BBA graduates are the backbone of India’s business future—creators, collaborators, and changemakers.”
According to published figures, India has over 3,700–6,400 BBA colleges nationwide. Nearly 100,000 students enrol in BBA programs every year, growing at a 13% CAGR. BBA demand has grown by 35% in the last three years due to the startup boom and the shift from job-seeking to value creation.
It’s just the ‘Skills’ of our youth that power the $10 trillion vision of the country, or a Trillion Dollar Telangana. EThames takes a very practical approach on its part to train students specifically for these goals. It embeds into its pedagogy the skills India needs most: an Entrepreneurial mindset to launch and scale ventures, financial literacy for data-driven decisions, AI savviness to thrive in modern workplaces, Communication & leadership for building effective teams and Global business understanding for international competitiveness.
Kalaiprasad calls for ravenous management talent. He firmly believes that India’s growth story will not be written by engineers alone, but also by management graduates who can lead, scale, and sustain businesses across sectors, as he puts it: “BBA is the bridge between education and enterprise—where ambition meets application.” Submitted by Solus Media
Disclaimer : By PR Team EThames College, Hyderabad.
