Mr. Aakash Chaudhry

Mr. Aakash Chaudhry sat down with Mr. Shreevats Jaipuria for a fireside chat on building sustainable growth — the story of how Aakash Educational Services went from 30 centres and ₹35 crore in revenue to 350 centres and ₹2,200 crore in fourteen years, and the principles that made it possible.

He began with the decision that shaped everything else. When he joined the family business in 2006, his father refused to let him work from the head office. **"If you stay with me, you won't learn."** So he spent three years running a franchise in Bombay — making mistakes, understanding academics, operations, marketing, sales, infrastructure — before he was allowed to join the corporate journey in Delhi. That franchise apprenticeship, he said, was the single most valuable experience of his career, because it taught him the value, care, economics and accountability that keep a brand's stature intact.

From there he distilled the three decisions that drove the company's rise. **First, fanatical focus on outcomes.** In education, the result is everything: if parents do not see results, trust breaks. "If there is result, then there is revenue; if there is revenue, then there is better quality — and the cycle continues." **Second, systems.** A good system lifts the floor; it ensures the same quality teacher follows the same syllabus, timetable and question paper whether the centre is in Delhi, Gulbarga, Calcutta or Assam. **Third, talented people.** Good people lift the ceiling. "You need both — systems can lift your bottom, but people can pull from the top."

On the question that haunted every education entrepreneur in the room — can quality and scale coexist? — he was unequivocal. "We were able to maintain quality because of scale." Scale is the enemy only when you scale the wrong things. Scale the right quality elements and scale becomes the greatest multiplier of quality there is, because it gives you the investment capability to pour back into teachers, training and technology. His Harvard professor put it simply: **"Just focus on excellence. Where there is excellence, it will scale on its own."**

Standardisation versus customisation drew a sharp line. **"Standardise your promise, localise your expression."** The promise — what parents trust the brand to deliver — must be identical everywhere. How you teach, the language you use, the examples you pick, can and should be local. But if a parent in Panipat cannot get the same outcome as one in Delhi, the story falls apart. That belief drove the largest teacher-training, hiring and placement mechanism in Indian coaching, and he was unapologetic about the spend: "What if I spend on training and people leave? What if I don't spend — and people stay?"

On delegation he reached for Akbar's Navratans. Akbar was great not because he did everything himself but because he had a thinker, a singer, a fighter. Aakash's method: list the work that should happen without you, cluster it — technology, sales, academy — and delegate it, while keeping purpose, culture and trust firmly with the owner, because "that thinking cannot be done professionally." The first CEO experiment failed because he skipped the hand-holding; the team needed to see that the owner stood behind the change. The second time he was present in every meeting until the new leader was accepted.

The conversation turned personal on family business. He joined twice — first at 21, when his father was at the peak of teacher stardom and rejected every idea; then again in 2006, when his father told him, **"You are coming back not to change me — use me. Use my experience, don't disrespect it."** His advice to the next generation: understand the old way first, respect it, then bring your data and technology. "Experience and data, insights and technology — when they work together, they create magic. Neither alone is enough."

He closed with crisis composure. When 16 of 20 teachers were poached overnight in Kota, he didn't panic — he called six centres, filled the first flight with replacements, and ran the timetable the next morning. "The problem comes, the problem stays, and then the problem leaves. You don't go around it — you jump in the middle of it, fix it and come out."