Old boy gifts Rs 1 crore to St John’s

Nitin Jain

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, February 20

Sandeep Goyal, an alumnus of St John’s High School, Sector 26, Chandigarh, has gifted his alma mater a whopping sum of Rs 1 crore for the embellishment and greater glory of the school. A presentation ceremony will be held at the school on Wednesday morning.

Christened “The Sandeep Goyal St John’s Endowment of Rs 1 crore”, it will be the first-of-its-kind gift for the school, which started way back in 1960, when the then Chief Minister of Punjab, Pratap Singh Kairon, had invited the Christian brothers to set up a top quality missionary school in the new capital city.

“I am what I am today for the strong values instilled in us at St John’s, where the accent was always on smart thinking and hard work. St John’s has always had a limited intake of students, which made for a very close interaction with teachers and fellow students. As a result, you grew up with a well-rounded, well-informed personality,” the Mumbai-based 55-year-old Sandeep Goyal told The Tribune here today.

He said, “Through the endowment, I want the school to start an annual oration. There are so many famous alumni of St John’s and so many Chandigarhians who have achieved fame and fortune. I would also like to help create an all-India school debate and an all-India school declamation. If more funds are needed, we will support the endowment further”.

Tanya Goyal, a former banker and wife of Sandeep Goyal, who will head the advisory board of the endowment fund, said, “We will work with the school authorities in identifying areas in which we can enrich the school and its students. St John’s is a premier institute, not lacking in facilities or infrastructure, but there is always scope for betterment.”

Goyal’s lawyer daughter, Carol, will also serve on the advisory board along with Prof Avanindra Chopra and school principal Kavita Das.

Goyal passed out from St John’s in 1977. He did his BA (Honours) in English Literature, topping Panjab University and winning a gold medal. He then went onto pursue his MBA from the FMS, Delhi. Sandeep has also successfully completed the three-year OPM programme from Harvard Business School. He is currently in the process of completing his PhD in Management.

Sandeep’s first job was with a paint company, Goodlass Nerolac, but he soon moved to advertising where he spent the next 30 years. Sandeep was president of the iconic advertisement agency, Rediffusion, in the late 90s. He then became the group CEO of Zee Telefilms. In this assignment, Goyal became India’s highest paid professional CEO. He then went onto turn entrepreneur bringing Dentsu Inc, the world’s number one advertisement agency, into India as a joint venture partner.

Over the years, Goyal has handled advertising for big clients like Maruti Suzuki, Nestle, Glaxo Smith Kline, Toyota, Honda, Sony, Canon and many more. The high point of Sandeep’s career, however, has been the launch of Airtel, a brand he helped create and launch from scratch and take to market leadership.

Goyal was the first Indian on the global jury of the prestigious Emmy Awards. Over the years, he has been on the governing bodies of the AAAI, IBF, INS, MRUC, ASCI and more.Goyal has written three books while two more are in the pipeline this year.

His parents, however, continue to be in Chandigarh.Goyal is also the sponsor of the Ranvijay Singh Award at St John’s for the past 10 years. It is an award given to the “nicest boy” at St John’s and is popular among both students and teachers.

“I hope the way shown by Sandeep Goyal will be emulated by other St John’s alumni as well as other schools. For Goyal, this is a gift of gratitude and a meaningful statement in terms of a real giveback,” says his daughter Carol.

The endowment fund will be professionally managed and administered by Julius Baer, global Swiss wealth managers, to ensure that the returns on the corpus are optimal, yet risk-free.