Most business degrees are still taught the way they were thirty years ago: thick textbooks, one-way lectures, and case studies about companies that stopped being relevant before today’s students were born. NEXIS Masterclasses take a different route. At NEXIS School of Business in Siliguri, students learn directly from founders, CXOs, and domain experts who are running real companies right now, not just talking about how companies used to run.
Quick Overview:
NEXIS Masterclasses are interactive, industry-led sessions where practicing entrepreneurs and business leaders replace textbook theory with live case studies, direct Q&A, and boardroom-style problem-solving, giving NEXIS students hands-on exposure to how real companies are planned, financed, and scaled.
In this Article:
What Are NEXIS Masterclasses?
NEXIS Masterclasses are built and led by people who are actually building businesses, not professional lecturers reciting theory from a slide deck. Unlike a typical guest lecture, where a speaker talks and students listen, a masterclass at NEXIS is built for back-and-forth — students challenge assumptions, ask hard questions, and push speakers on the numbers behind their decisions.
Three things set the format apart: every session is led by someone actively running a company, so the examples come from that week, not a ten-year-old case study; the format is built for genuine dialogue rather than a one-way monologue; and the conversation stays close to ground realities — unit economics, customer acquisition, distribution, and the operational problems a textbook never covers.
NEXIS runs more than 30 of these sessions every semester, right on our Siliguri campus, featuring CXOs and founders from existing business empires. You can read more about how NEXIS approaches learning by doing on our About page.
The Practical Execution Gap in Business Education
Many business programs share a common flaw: students learn theories but struggle when real-world problems arise. Even though graduate employability in India is improving, many students still don’t feel ready for the job market when they graduate.
There are three main reasons for this:
- Exam-driven memorization: Students often memorize frameworks just to pass exams, rather than using them to solve real problems.
- Outdated business cases: Case studies frequently focus on outdated companies that don’t reflect today’s fast-paced market.
- Lack of founder interaction: Students rarely speak directly with founders who can share honest, unfiltered insights about their actual business challenges.
NEXIS Masterclasses bridge this gap. We connect students directly with industry leaders who are solving these problems in real time.
Bridging Theory and Practice
At NEXIS, we don’t just learn business ideas—we test them. We take the theories you learn in class and see how they work in a real company.
Marketing & Growth
Instead of just learning the basics of marketing, students talk to founders about how much it costs to get customers and how they make their brand stand out using real, current data.
Corporate Finance & Accounting
Finance becomes clear when a founder explains how they manage cash flow every day and how they decide where to spend their money to grow the business.
Supply Chain & Operations
Operations theory feels real when you hear from an expert about how they manage suppliers and make sure products are delivered on time, every single day.
These sessions help students move from just knowing what a word means to actually being able to make and defend smart business decisions.
How NEXIS Masterclasses Turn Learning Into Action
A masterclass isn’t a lecture with a Q&A tacked on at the end. Each session typically runs through three stages. Speakers open with a real, current challenge from their own company — not a sanitized textbook version — and students dig into the actual constraints behind it: customer behavior, regulation, and the numbers on the table.
From there, students split into teams to work the problem under a real deadline, weighing trade-offs and building a workable plan rather than a theoretical one. The session closes with teams pitching their solution directly to the visiting expert, defending their logic in front of the room and getting direct feedback on the spot instead of a grade three weeks later.
Students have used this same format to learn how to pitch and sell in under 30 seconds, coached directly by a founder.
Meet the Industry Experts Behind NEXIS Masterclasses
Jaspal Bindra — Entrepreneur, TEDx Speaker & Valuepreneur
Founder of seven ventures, including Punjabi Kadhai, Kesar Caterers, Café Karmaa Diaries, and Café Kurseong Diaries, Bindra walks students through building purpose-driven brands, scaling multi-outlet hospitality businesses, and protecting unit economics as a company grows.
Anurag Agarwala — Entrepreneur, CFA & SRCC Alumnus
With a background in investment banking and ventures spanning SriIRS Ventures, KLAN Couture, Kaamster, and Professional Thread, Agarwala breaks down capital allocation, financial structuring, and what it actually takes to scale an EV brand’s distribution across North Bengal and Sikkim.
Adhiraj Agarwal — Co-Founder & Managing Director, Godhuli Milk
Running a farm-fresh dairy business built from the ground up in Siliguri, Agarwal shows students what in-house farming, automated processing, and a direct farm-to-doorstep supply chain actually look like on the operations floor.
CA Jittendra Mittal — Chartered Accountant, Mentor & Speaker
Drawing on decades in real estate development, asset valuation, and property investment analysis, Mittal teaches students to read a financial statement the way a lender or investor would: for what it reveals about the health of the business, not just the numbers on the page.
What Students Gain From NEXIS Masterclasses
Regular exposure to people actually running businesses builds capabilities a syllabus alone cannot:
- Problem diagnosis: Spotting the real bottleneck inside a messy, unstructured business scenario
- Persuasive communication: Defending a recommendation with data and holding up under tough questions
- Execution under pressure: Delivering a workable plan with a team, against a real deadline
- Direct professional exposure: Real conversations with founders and investors on what the market actually expects right now
Frequently Asked Questions
What are NEXIS Masterclasses?
Interactive sessions led by active founders and CXOs focusing on real-time problem-solving rather than traditional lectures.
Who leads the sessions?
Practicing entrepreneurs and executives from existing business empires.
How often are they held?
Over 30 sessions are conducted each semester directly on the Siliguri campus.
How do the sessions work?
Speakers present a real business challenge, student teams build solutions under deadlines, and pitch directly for immediate feedback.
