IMAGE INC. Jagdish Sheth School of Management in Bengaluru

“Yet another business school?” one may well ask. The Jagdish Sheth School of Management (JAGSoM), part of Vijaybhoomi University, a private university in Karjat (Maharashtra), has unveiled a new ‘brand’ of B-School — The Specialist Brand School (TSBS). JAGSoM, which was rebranded from its earlier avatar, IFIM B-School, has a 30-year track record and is one of 22 B-schools in India accredited with the AACSB (Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business) badge.

Sanjay Padode, founder, JAGSoM, and President, Vijaybhoomi University, explains the new addition to the B-school armoury: “We must train young minds to think beyond the tech haze, to touch human emotions for brands. Everyone is doing tech and some are doing great content, but all this gets is brand recall. For brand connect, one needs to touch emotions and, at TSBS, a student will learn to empathise, touch emotions and shape brands. It is a place for those who are serious about the discipline and craft of building enduring brands.”

TSBS literature explains it thus: Brand management has been progressively reduced to tools, templates, campaigns, and short-term metrics. The real work of building enduring brands — clear thinking, sound judgment, and long-term value creation — has been forgotten. TSBS exists to correct this drift. We believe brands are built by people who can think critically, decide wisely, and act consistently.”

Founder-Dean Anand Narasimha, who has spent decades building brands, explains that the options today are an MBA with a marketing specialisation, or short-term skilling certification courses online. “Several from industry say they are facing a talent gap in getting good, trained brand managers. What they recruit from B-schools or skilling institutes leaves much to be desired... and they have to spend a lot of time training them. So I had this idea of setting up a school exclusively devoted to education on brands,” he explains.

The one-year, ₹9 lakh ‘master’s in brand management’ programme will involve in-person classes at the JAGSoM campus in Electronics City, Bengaluru. Selection to the programme, which will take in 30 students, is based on an interview for a ‘brand fit’. The school has roped in an influential advisory council comprising those steeped in brands, including Sandeep Nair, Co-Founder, David & Who, and formerly with Swiggy, Reckitt, and P&G; Sheetal Jain, Founder, Luxe Analytics; Rutu Mody Kamdar, Founder, Jigsaw Brand Consultants; Lulu Raghavan, President, APAC, Landor; and Hamsini Shivakumar, brand semiotician and founder, Leapfrog Consulting. All of them are brand evangelists and some teach at B-schools here and abroad.

TSBS’s curriculum, Narasimha explains, is based on what he calls the ‘BSOC framework’. “If you look at the role of a brand manager in a company, there are four pillars to it. The ‘B’ stands for ‘business owner’, which means a brand manager owns the business of the brand, the P&L of the brand. The brand manager is responsible for the marketing margins, the profitability, the growth, the numbers,” he elaborates.

The ‘S’ stands for ‘strategist’. Brand managers need to understand consumers — from consumer insights to behaviour, market trends and competition — to create a positioning for growth strategies.

‘O’, he says, is for ‘orchestrator’. Brand managers need to work with multiple stakeholders in agencies — from creative to media and digital. Within the company, they have to work with folks in sales, in finance for the budgets, in R&D and product development, and in supply chain. “And the ‘C’ is ‘custodian’. He or she has to be the custodian of the brand within the organisation. Represent the brand and be responsible for its health and sustainability.”

Says Leapfrog’s Shivakumar, “Over the past decade, with the rise of digital platforms and social media, as well as start-up culture, the emphasis in marketing has gradually moved away from strategic brand building to performance marketing and sales. In the glory days of TV, marketing elevated the role and value of brands to business. But now, it seems, there is almost an unstated consensus building that brands don’t matter so long as you are selling named products with a logo.

“We need a renewed focus on brand and strategic brand management with a dedicated full course, not just one credit course among a slew of courses in an MBA programme.”

After 10 months on campus, the students will go for a three-month industry internship, where they will work with a brand manager, applying their learnings practically. JAGSoM is in the process of entering into MOUs with companies for these internships. Narasimha expects the trained students to excel in their roles and the internships to extend into job offers. That will be the moment of truth, as much for a brand as for TSBS students.

Published on February 9, 2026