In the time of recession, when their colleagues are worried about getting jobs, three final-year students from the Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow, have not only assured a place in PepsiCo but also a chance to fly to New York and advise Indra Nooyi, the Global CEO of PepsiCo, on corporate social responsibility projects of the company.

Ankit Dhingra, Chittaranjan Mishra and Ashutosh Bhatt were selected over 500 others in a national-level competition. They were tested for their ability in handling business challenges.

The first round of the competition named ‘Taste the Success — Become Indra’s Advisors’ was extended to three weeks in October-November last year. Teams from the six IIMs, the Management Development Institute, Xavier Labour Relations Institute, Jamshedpur, Symbiosis Institute of Business Management and

Jamnalal Bajaj Institute

of Management Studies, Mumbai, participated in the competition.

The IIM-L team, calling itself the ‘Markaraz’, emerged the winner.

The trio are now all set to leave on January 30 for the appointment with Nooyi in New York. The competition included a game on business stimulation, in which the participants were given challenges keeping the business of

PepsiCo in mind.

“In the present economic scenario, the opportunity that we have got is incomparable. First, a pre-placement offer from a company like PepsiCo and then the chance to visit the global headquarters of the company in New York to advise their CEO on projects relating to corporate social responsibility,” says Ankit Dhingra.

The team is now preparing by studying the trends and structure of the international market of food and beverages.