Industry-focused educator: Varun Satia

Satia: bridging academy-industry divide

Varun Satia is co-founder of Kraftshala Pvt. Ltd (estb.2016), an online ed-tech platform designed to bridge the gap between education and employability. It bills itself as “India’s largest marketing and sales-focused higher-ed institution” and provides online sales, marketing and business leadership study programmes. Over the past decade, it has mentored more than 10,000 professionals, most of whom are employed with blue-chip companies including Unilever, Nestle, Publicis Groupe, Nykaa, and Bajaj Auto.

Newspeg. A measure of the good reputation Kraftshala has built is that in March the company raised $310,000 (Rs.26 crore) by way of additional capital from current and new investors including Phanindra Sama (founder, redBus), Sujayath Ali (co-founder, ShopUp), Pallav Jain (co-founder, Performics India), and Tie Nizamabad, among others.

History. An alumnus of BITS-Pilani and Faculty of Management Studies (FMS), University of Delhi, Satia began his career at Nestle India in 2011. After a four-year stint with Nestle, during which he acquired valuable sales and marketing experience, he went solo with the promotion of Expertizo, an online test prep venture that disappeared in the crowded space of coaching institutes and shut shop. In 2016, together with FMS classmate Eshu Sharma, who resigned from Unilever, he promoted Kraftshala.

“In the corporate world, both Eshu and I experienced a huge disconnect between academic education and industry expectation. The prime objective of Kraftshala is to develop a new education model that equips graduates with skills to become employable and hit the ground running after employment,” says Satia. This proposition enthused Doreswamy Nandkishore (Head of Asia, Oceania, Africa for Nestle) and Sarfaraz Khimani (CEO, Performics) who provided seed funding to Kraftshala.

With Satia (and Sharma) having acquired excellent marketing experience in two blue-chip FMCG (fast moving consumer goods) companies, Kraftshala programmes are focused on marketing and sales. Flagship (online) programmes include a postgrad in Sales, Marketing and Business Leadership (open to graduates and final year students with “no full-time academic commitment”), and Digital Marketing and Emerging Talent Program (Plus Two graduates). Duration: 22 weeks (full-time course) and 11 months (part time course); fees Rs.55,000-83,000.

Direct talk. “Our study programmes are jobs oriented, practical and led by industry practitioners. A full-time faculty of ten, and 50 industry experts, deliver our projects-based learning programmes. They are supplemented by 80 hours of career preparation to ready students for placement through six structured modules including resume building and interview prep. This focus on employability-oriented study programmes and rigorous career preparation has paid-off in terms of excellent placements for graduates. Thus far, over 2,000 of them have been placed in jobs with remuneration ranging from Rs.5-10 lakh per year. We offer a 60 percent fee refund if students fail to receive an annual pay package of Rs.4.5 lakh or above,” says Satia.

Future plans. With the company having recently secured its second round of funding, Satia plans to “scale with purpose”. “Over the next two years, we plan to introduce digital marketing, content strategy, and sales leadership programmes to 5,000 students, while continuously investing in latest technology and signing up more industry partnerships,” says Satia.