How an ISB PGP Pro Admit Chose the Perfect Stories for his MBA Application

The hardest part of the ISB MBA application is not always the GMAT. For many applicants, especially those with rich, multi-faceted careers. The harder challenge is this: you have too many stories. You have lived enough to fill three essays, but you only have the space for one. Which experiences do you use? How do you structure them? What does the admissions committee actually want to hear?

Mohana Shyam, a pharma entrepreneur who had spent years across multinational companies before launching his own venture, faced exactly this problem. This is the story of how he navigated the ISB PGP Pro application, found the right mentor, and built an application essay strategy that got him in.

From Pharma Sales to Founder: Mohana’s Profile

Mohana holds a Bachelor’s degree in Pharmaceutical Sciences. After graduating, he joined several multinational pharmaceutical companies across sales and marketing functions – building experience in a sector that demands both scientific understanding and commercial acumen.

About two years before applying to ISB, Mohana launched his own venture. The entrepreneurial transition came naturally out of the domain expertise he had accumulated, but running a business surfaced a different set of challenges. As a founder, he needed to navigate strategy, operations, people, and finance – simultaneously, without a formal framework for any of them.

“It is because I realized that there were a lot of different things that I had to do, and I knew for certain that an MBA would help me become a better entrepreneur.”

That clarity of purpose – MBA to become a better entrepreneur, not to exit the venture – shaped everything that followed, including the program he eventually chose.

Why ISB PGP Pro: The Part-Time MBA Decision

Mohana was clear from the beginning that a full-time MBA was not the right format for him. His venture was operational and growing. Taking 12 months away from it was not something he was willing to do. He needed a programme that allowed him to keep building while gaining the management education he was after.

He started by attending info sessions at various business schools to understand his options. His initial research led him to IIM Bangalore’s part-time executive programme before he eventually zeroed in on ISB PGP Pro – ISB’s 18-month part-time programme for working professionals with significant experience.

The ISB PGP Pro appealed for several reasons: ISB’s global ranking and alumni network, the rigour of the curriculum, the ability to stay actively involved in his business throughout, and the opportunity to be in a cohort of senior professionals bringing diverse functional and industry experience into the classroom.

For entrepreneurs specifically, the ISB PGP Pro is worth understanding as a distinct option from the full-time PGP. The cohort is more experienced, classroom discussions draw on more years of professional context, and the part-time format means you implement learnings in your own organisation in real time. Mohana’s goals aligned well with that structure. For a broader look at how ISB compares across its different programmes, see our ISB profile and admissions guide.

The Real Challenge: Choosing the Right Stories

With his programme decision made, Mohana turned to the application. And this is where the difficulty started.

Mohana had a strong profile on paper. Years of pharma sales experience at multinational companies, a running venture, clear post-MBA goals. The raw material for a strong application was there. But when he sat down to write the essays, he ran into the problem that trips up many experienced applicants: he had too much to say and no clear framework for deciding what mattered.

Which experiences were the right ones to lead with? How do you condense a decade of professional experience into 400 words without losing what makes it compelling? How do you write about entrepreneurship without sounding generic? These are not questions that more thinking alone can answer – they require the perspective of someone who has seen thousands of profiles and knows what the ISB admissions committee actually responds to.

Mohana began working with his essays independently. He came to Crackverbal already in touch with several ISB alumni, who had recommended the platform. He attended a live info session by Arun Jagannathan and Srikant Singh and says the depth and specificity of the guidance stood out immediately.

“I did not see such kind of elaboration and in-depth information on the B-school application process at any other place.”

That session was enough for him to commit to working with Crackverbal through the rest of the application.

The Mentor Who Had More Faith in Him Than He Did

Mohana was paired with Arun Sir, one of Crackverbal’s senior MBA admissions mentors. And the thing Mohana remembers most about working with Arun Sir is not a specific edit or piece of advice – it is the confidence he received.

“My mentor had more faith in me than myself.”

That asymmetry – a mentor seeing the strength in your profile more clearly than you can – is one of the defining features of a good admissions mentoring relationship. Applicants are too close to their own stories. They discount experiences they have lived through because familiarity makes those experiences feel ordinary. A mentor who has seen hundreds of ISB applications can recognise immediately which stories will land and which ones, however impressive they feel from the inside, will not differentiate the application.

For Mohana, the mentoring went beyond identifying the right stories. It was about structure.

“Mentor for me is someone who structures down responses.”

Arun Sir helped Mohana take the raw material of his pharma career and entrepreneurial journey and build it into an essay narrative with a clear spine: what he had done, what he had learned from it, what kind of leader he was becoming, and what specific gap the ISB PGP Pro was uniquely positioned to fill. That structure gave the admissions committee a coherent portrait of a candidate, not a list of accomplishments, but a story with direction.

What Mohana’s Application Teaches About ISB Essay Strategy

Mohana’s journey surfaces several lessons that apply to any ISB PGP or PGP Pro applicant – not just those from pharma or entrepreneurial backgrounds.

Clarity of goal is the foundation. Mohana knew exactly why he wanted the MBA and what he planned to do with it. He was not hedging or exploring – he was building a specific business and needed specific tools. That directness gives an application a centre of gravity. Everything else in the essay – the stories you choose, the leadership qualities you highlight, the aspect of ISB you mention – can be connected back to that purpose. Applicants who are vague about their goals tend to write vague essays. Applicants with a specific destination write specific essays.

The right story is not always the most impressive one. Mohana had years of experience across multinational companies. But the essay is not a CV. The right story for an ISB essay is the one that best illustrates the quality the prompt is looking for – leadership, intellectual curiosity, personal growth – regardless of whether it was the biggest deal you closed or the most visible project you ran. Sometimes the right story is a smaller moment that reveals something true about how you think and operate.

Structure is not a constraint – it is what makes the story readable. ISB essays have strict word limits. Within those limits, an unstructured essay reads as a stream of thought; a structured one reads as a person who can communicate under pressure. The format Arun Sir helped Mohana develop – context, action, learning, forward-looking implication – is not a template for sounding like everyone else. It is a tool for making sure the admissions committee can follow your thinking quickly and come away with a clear impression of who you are.

An outside perspective is not optional for most applicants. Not because applicants are not capable of writing well – Mohana clearly was – but because the blind spots that hurt MBA essays are invisible to the person writing them. You cannot see which of your experiences seem distinctive from the outside. You cannot tell which parts of your narrative are unclear to someone who has not lived your life. A mentor who has read hundreds of ISB applications can see all of this in a first read. For context on what the ISB essays actually ask and how to approach each prompt, see our ISB essay analysis for 2025-26.

Mohana’s Three Lessons for ISB Applicants

What to Do Next If You Are Considering ISB PGP Pro

ISB PGP Pro is a competitive programme and the application process is substantively the same as the full-time PGP – essays, recommendations, and an interview that assesses goal clarity, fit, and leadership narrative. The profile of a competitive PGP Pro applicant typically includes 5+ years of strong professional experience, evidence of leadership or entrepreneurship, and a clear reason why the part-time format serves their goals better than a full-time programme.

If you are still evaluating whether PGP Pro or the full-time PGP is the right fit for you, see our guide to the ideal ISB profile for a breakdown of both programmes. If you are already decided and working on your application, our ISB essay analysis is the best starting point for understanding what the 2025-26 prompts are actually asking for.

And if you are at the point Mohana was at – you have a strong profile but you are not sure how to turn it into a strong application – that is exactly what our MBA admissions consulting programme is designed for. For related reading, see how another entrepreneur navigated the ISB PGP Pro application in Suyog Pathak’s story.

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