“You Need Well-Rounded Skills”: How an SP Jain GMBA Shaped Entrepreneur Khyati Bhatt’s Journey

Editor’s Note: In this Real Stories feature, we meet Khyati Bhatt, Founder & CEO of Simply Body Talk, who completed her Global MBA at SP Jain in 2005. Her journey spans corporate finance, currency trading, and now building three specialized ventures that help leaders, children, and professionals master nonverbal communication. In this interview, she shares how the GMBA influenced her thinking, strengthened her confidence, and accelerated her entrepreneurial path.

Khyati Bhatt (KB): I was pretty much a fresher. After completing my engineering degree, I had done a very short stint in a small computer firm as I was preparing for my MBA exams. The path was clear – to complete all education and then begin my professional career. After my program at SP Jain, with a specialisation in wealth management, I joined one of India’s largest IT companies as a finance business analyst and then moved to the role of a currency trader & portfolio manager within the same organisation. I quit soon to start my journey as an entrepreneur, initially joining my family business in 2008 and continuing till 2011. After a short maternity break, I was ready to restart my career as a full-fledged independent entrepreneur and there has been no looking back for me since then. I launched Simply Body Talk in 2013, CueKids in 2019 and recently SBT Academy in 2025. All three brands specialize in nonverbal communication as a niche to help individuals and organisations to excel at people skills, each one for different age groups through different type of programs. It has been a great experience so far, and I am enjoying this journey.

“I knew the right education was the foundation that would give a head start to me. And this is why I was clear on spending time and efforts to get into a good MBA program.”

TA: How did that decision to pursue an MBA at SP Jain align with your dream of becoming an entrepreneur?

KB: I wanted to become an entrepreneur ever since I was a child because entrepreneurship is what I had witnessed all around me, and the freedom that comes with it to pursue one’s own dream and goals fascinated me. I knew the right education was the foundation that would give a head start to me. And this is why I was clear on spending time and efforts to get into a good MBA program. The brand SP Jain has had a legacy in India, and I was thrilled to know there was an international program available. There was no doubt I was choosing this – a solid brand and an international program would give me the exposure that so many students in my country could only dream of.

TA: How long did it take to see a return on investment (financial or otherwise) from your MBA? Was it what you expected?

KB: It is difficult to put a figure to the return you get on your investment into education because there are so many factors to consider, if you pause to think of it that way. Financial, emotional, time as an opportunity cost, selection of one program over others as a cost benefit analysis and so on. Financially the entire spending was recovered within a year as a strong MBA program was expected to give a good campus placement, and it did. As for the other aspects, I could see them emerging over time and I have no second thoughts that every moment spent away from home was worth it. Choosing this program over others was a good decision.

Even within the corporate job that I took up from campus placement had a category wise recruitment from different educational institutes and their treatment of employees was accordingly in terms of salary, perks, access to career options etc. My friends and I who joined at the same time were placed in category A and got the privilege of choosing between a variety of options for the exact job profile. When some of us were not too happy with the choice we had made, we were still given an entire bouquet of excellent opportunities to choose from. Opportunities that can seem like a dream to students who might not be from a similar category A band. At the time, it seemed like a right that I had earned, but after working over the years and interacting with younger students from different backgrounds and programs I realised what we took as our rightful privilege was not even an option worth dreaming of for so many others. For e.g. in the company that I had joined, I was a business analyst for about eight months. The role was a bit slow and I was full of energy to want to contribute a lot more. Options provided to me for the switch included joining the M&A team, the treasury hedging team, the investor committee team, the cashflow team, even the CFO’s executive team. And these roles were not as a junior team member – each role allowed actual getting your hands dirty with real work. Just having this sort of access made my MBA worth it.

TA: As someone working in a highly specialized field like nonverbal communication, how has your MBA background helped you navigate these complex corporate environments?

KB: Ever since day one, I have had to talk with the senior most people within international organisations. There was not a moment’s hesitation or even a thought as to how I could do this, because the backing of a good degree had given me a pass to the best corporate job where I had worked with the senior most leaders already. Even today, senior leaders come to my team to help finetune their presentation skills. When I started out as a corporate trainer, I did not have to think whether I could present well; that’s what we did day in and day out during our MBA program. Then there were topics like negotiations, marketing strategy, macro-economics that were a delightful discovery for me while I was studying and a joy to implement when I began my own venture.

My work is such that it transcends beyond India into a bigger global scenario so I have to be alert about trends and competitors coming up in different geographies. So many on the spot decisions are to be taken every single day – where to print our material, what pricing to provide in which geography, what could be culturally driven challenges for senior leaders in their own country. I could give you an endless list, topics that got introduced to us in college, topics that I not get to use during my corporate career but had to use as an entrepreneur. I think entrepreneurs require an MBA more than anyone else because they need well rounded skills and a solid foundation in each one of them.

Entrepreneurship also requires to be planning and working upon ideas that will fructify not tomorrow but a little into the future and I need to constantly keep planning for them, very patiently, as the results are not that easy to see immediately. For e.g. for Simply Body Talk, I had built in Training, Coaching, Consulting into the tagline since 2013 when I began, because that’s what I wanted to do. Coaching came within the first few months of starting; training for corporates a year from then; and the consulting assignments that I really wanted to work on have come only after 2019 – we have consulted military on making split second decisions, provided insights to media agencies on improving TRP of reality shows, given expert witness testimonial in lawsuits, helped organisations define and communicate their cultural identity and so on. I wouldn’t say that one MBA program teaches you to do everything in one shot, but what it does is expose you to professors who would have given you insights into such thinking while they were teaching and you would have just picked up on those without consciously knowing about it. I remember we used to have professors from some of the best educational institutes and also visionary corporate leaders as visiting faculty and we used to scrape a lot of insights from their sessions.

“Entrepreneurs require an MBA more than anyone else because they need well rounded skills and a solid foundation in each one of them.”

TA: You’ve built two impactful ventures, Simply Body Talk and CueKids. Did your MBA help you translate your passion for human behavior and communication into a sustainable business model?

KB: Absolutely! Having one’s own brand is no cakewalk, there is just too much competition for entrepreneurs. I wanted to build something that was unique and in an uncharted territory. That required me to tap into every single lesson of management that I could remember from my course. I had to make tough choices from the get-go like whether my first hire should be someone from operations, or PR or business development. Being in the ecosystem of a corporation requires you to fulfil responsibilities given to you but being an entrepreneur meant I was actually taking decisions that would be permanent because this was no gameboard; people would be trusting me when they would join my team. Such decisions cannot be based on simple stuff like what I could see three months from today. I had to be able to project where I wanted to head a year from now, maybe two from now. That vision can be possible only if you know what angles you need to think of. And that vision is what a global MBA program can provide. And when I say global, it dawns upon me how I never really thought going global with my own venture was a “choice” I had to make – it has always been an obvious future from the day I began. And it’s not just me, most of my batchmates today are working and navigating in a global network.

I need a very different approach for my brands. Simply Body Talk needs to project excellent subject expertise, CueKids represents a creative brand and SBT Academy spells affordability. The topics one learns during MBA really help – how to market, how to position, how to price globally and act locally, etc.

Today I need to sit with different projection models like the P&L for my team to track, cashflows for me to handle, foreign currency fluctuations for my finance team to be careful about, territory mapping of potential centers for my business development team. Since we give out franchises of both CueKids and now SBT Academy, we need to be able to help our business partners to make these projection models for themselves as well. I can reflect how those endless MBA nights of crunching business models made it easier for me to think through these, no matter what geography we are referring to.

TA: Were there specific lessons or experiences that shaped how you lead your team now?

KB: Team work was one important part of every assignment in the program. There are so many different instances that have been memorable – one of our team mates had negotiated with us to complete all his work if he took us to THE hotel in Dubai with an all access visit pass. Then there was a time when one of our team mates did no work inspite of us telling him that he wouldn’t get credit for the work unless he contributed. Another time we had a full day marketing game called Mark-Strat that we were made to play in which the best of friends became “enemies” for the day – we had gotten just too involved in the game. Working in that time pressed team environment allowed me to understand human dynamics that would be involved when I would have a team of my own. Today we face challenges like some franchise teacher teaching outside the syllabus without having the right expertise, some center having a teacher quit with a last minute notice etc. and I don’t react to those because that’s what is part of being a team – we just have to cover each other’s back.

When I had to travel to another country for the very first time as an entrepreneur, in 2018, there were a lot of challenges that I had to face, and the biggest of them was to adapt to people from a totally different culture because I spent days together with our associate partners in Belgium who were localites. I had been interacting with people globally even prior, but living among them during the assignment was a different ballgame. My experience of having been to Dubai for the MBA was one huge factor in how well I was able to stay level headed as there were dynamics like being really open-minded to the humane side of my associate partners, last minute hiccups that we faced, the totally local food etc. but I could take it in my stride without too much difficulty. Now we have associates across the globe and I travel frequently and never have to think about how I might need to adapt.

TA: What was the most valuable outcome of your MBA—career shift, network, leadership skills, or something else?

KB: All of it. I would give top points to the alumni network and support by my institute. Buddies from hostel with whom we fought over for food supplies in the kitchen and for not having finished their part of the team task have become friends for life. They have all supported me in different ways as I explored, sometimes took time to find my ground and needed guidance, advice etc. Impossible problem solving is also usually just a text away. To give you a specific example, recently we were facing a lot of customs clearance issues when our material reached Greece. I pinged in my alumni group and there were atleast two colleagues who gave me specific inputs to work with.

I have also been given the opportunity time and again by my alma mater to highlight my career journey, and to present our programs through different routes to the alumni. Because of that, I have been able to build an associate network currently in the UAE region. For my newest venture for young professionals that we just launched, SBT Academy, the earliest supporter I got was again from the alumni network – knowing people who are familiar just helps build trust and the college has provided ample platform to stay visible and connected with others of similar interests.

I am not big on actively seeking connections, and yet I have found great opportunities. So if one is very active and focused, there is a lot that a good institute’s alumni network can offer.

As regards career shift, I believe the initial few assignments that I got had a lot to do with how strong my resume was. Obviously my certification in my field of specialization and the corporate career played a role but the college background adds a lot of credibility. Even today, when we are onboarded by a new corporate client, there are times when they first ask for the founder’s resume and then take a decision based on that.

TA: Entrepreneurship can be an emotional rollercoaster. Looking back, what part of your MBA experience helped you stay resilient and focused when things didn’t go as planned?

KB: Of course the obvious is there – how the course teaches you some modules on thinking on your feet, contingency planning etc. But what you truly carry with you is what you would have learnt through experiences while studying. I remember completing assignments last minute, teaching a friend some concepts after way past bed time and still staying focused during exam the next day, fighting over what to present, not coming to any conclusion and yet presenting well as a team in front of the class.. On the other side were resource crunches that we sometimes faced – coming home too tired to cook food, discovering that your room-mate had finished your supplies, sharing a single plate of Indian food among five of us because it was too expensive to buy more, I could keep going on and on! Each of these experiences has helped me to learn to fight difficult situations and has shaped my personality.

TA: What 3 things would you advise someone to do to truly make the most of their MBA experience?

KB: One. Choose a college that actually has value to offer not just the degree because that degree is worth it only if the backing of the brand is solid, even if you have to wait for it. I did – waited a year and prepared to get into the best college that I could, not just any that came my way.

Two. Just because you get into a good college does not give you a free pass to an accelerated career. How you immerse yourself into the program is what will help to give you the edge – so deep dive into that post-graduation not just attend college to tick one item off your checklist.

Three. If you have a chance, and if you don’t, make time for it – take up some internship however small it is because that will give you an opportunity to realise how the concepts discussed in class can be applied in real life situations. Because once your resume says you have an MBA, every job interview will expect that you are able to justify that degree through your reflective answers.

“The acceleration that the degree and its experience offers to you will result in compounded benefits all along your career path.”

TA: And finally, if someone close to you asked whether an MBA is still worth it today, what would you tell them, based on your own experience?

KB: It absolutely is. From my thirteen plus years of working closely with managers and leaders, those who come to us for coaching to reflect upon their career shift are usually ones who do not have an MBA background. Some want to see how they can catch up with higher performing colleagues, some want to stand out in boardroom meetings, some want to be able to navigate forever challenging situations that leadership offers, the list is endless. But somewhere in their hearts there is a regret for not taking those life lessons that MBA offers, and somewhere in their minds they know they need to perform a lot more to stay equivalent to others around them who have the MBA degree. The acceleration that the degree and its experience offers to you will result in compounded benefits all along your career path. I have not just experienced this through my clients; I have lived that path.