B.N. Acharya has had a life of varied experiences and has developed a wonderful capacity to bring those experiences into the classroom. He loves field sales persons from the bottom of his heart and enjoys training them.

He joined LIC in 1977 as a member of the 10th batch of direct recruits and won great plaudits for his work in marketing at various offices. He worked in branches at Bangalore, Rourkela, Jharsuguda and Sambhapur, achieving much acclaim for his work there. The development officers and agents of those branches benefitted from his aggressive marketing approach.

In 1991 he quit LIC and joined Sri Aurobindo International Center of Education, Pondichery, where he worked till the year 2000. He then took up his passion of training the field force once again as a Consultant Trainer for Bajaj Allianz Life Insurance Company. Many hundreds of sales managers and agents trained by him remember his contribution to their success.

B.N. Acharya joined IIST in 2012

B.L. Agarwal has over 50 years of experience in life insurance. Out of these 50 years, about 40 years were with Life Insurance Corporation of India. He retired in the cadre of Regional Manager from the North Central Zone. Prior to that he worked in the positions of Branch Manager, Marketing Manager and Senior Divisional Manager.

Using a simple language and day-to-day examples, B.L. Agarwal is able to communicate a lot of complicated concepts for his trainees to understand in a clear and unambiguous manner. His trainees love the passion he brings to the classroom and energy he passes on to them.

He joined IIST in 2014.

K.L. Agarwal has nearly 40 years of experience in life insurance selling, developing and managing sales teams, and in training. He started his career as a development officer in Life Insurance Corporation of India and rose to the rank of Regional Manager.

He is passionate about training sales teams to help them achieve the success they deserve. Many sales teams that he has coached and worked with closely remember his contributions for their growth fondly.

He joined IIST in 2016.

N.C. Bhatta has more than 40 years of experience in life insurance selling, developing and managing sales teams, and in training. He started his life insurance career in Life Insurance Corporation of India as a development officer. At the time of his retirement he was in the rank of Senior Divisional Manager. In this long career at LIC he had numerous achievements, including securing the 2nd position in performance at LIC for his Division.

As a coach he has a vast following amongst his trainees and has had numerous achievements. He is a much sought after coach at IIST.

He joined IIST in 2016.

R.C. Bhat is a person with great experience in life insurance marketing. He has worked in Life Insurance Corporation of India for nearly 40 years and retired from there in the cadee of Senior Divisional Manager. Bhat is a multi-faceted personality. He has written over 100 articles and many books. He is also an avid trekker, having undertaken a few difficult treks to Mansarovar (multiple times) and other places. He is an encyclopedia of Bollywood movies, its characters and songs.

He loves teaching salespersons and helping them to achieve their full potential. His philosophy on getting through life in difficult times is available in a book written by him – Struggling and Winning in Life .

Bhat joined IIST in 2018.

Clifford B. has a rich sales and sales training experience spanning a period of 30 years. During this period he worked in a number of organisations and his work took him to the Middle East countries, Nepal and Singapore.

Currently Clifford B. is a Faculty Member, The Institute of Insurance Sales Training, (IIST), Pune, India. He has earned a very high reputation for his command of the basics of selling and sales management. He has a wonderful ability to convert this command to useful training inputs in the classroom. He has a rich experience of training life insurance sales and sales management persons in all channels of distribution. Clifford believes that self-discipline forms the basis for success in sales, which fits in very well with the IIST training modules and content.

Clifford previously worked at Bajaj Allianz Life Insurance as a trainer, where he had contributed to the training in all channels of distribution. He joined Bajaj Allianz Life Insurance as a trainer and in a span of 3 years rose to be the Head of the Alternate Channels training vertical. Many performers in Bajaj Allianz Life Insurance owe their performance to his training.

In his current assignment as a faculty member of IIST, since 2008, he has won a great acceptance amongst the most experienced and most successful life insurance salespersons in India, in Life Insurance Corporation of India as well as in many private life insurance companies. He not only contributed to performance enhancements of those trained by him but was equally successful in bring about a change in the way those participants conducted their work life.

Eustace D’Costa, previously worked with TATA AIG Life. His work there was recognized, and he was designated Zonal Master Trainer. He has more than 25 years of experience of leading sales teams and training in life insurance as a full-time employee and more than eleven years of experience of other training related work.

Eustace specializes in working with organisations and individuals to train and develop the human capital required so much to take the trainees on the desired growth path from efficiency to effectiveness.

He has also worked and trained in extremely dynamic and demanding work environments in the public and private sectors, including ICICI Prudential Life Insurance, HSBC Bank, Citi Bank, Citi Financial, India Bulls Financial Services, 24/7 Bangalore, ITC Bangalore, Bajaj Capital, Karvy, Andromeda, Call Tech, Centrum Financial Services, Satyam Broking, Continental Suraksha Broking, Anand Rathi Broking, PAN Insurance, DHL, Tata-AIG Life Insurance, etc. He has also trained LIC development officers and agents.

Eustace has been rewarded with the Quarterly “Acrux” Award and early “Herculus” Award at Tata AIG and the “Sapnay” Award by HSBC.

Eustace D’Costa has been with IIST since 2011.

Dilip Dumbre has over 40 years of experience at the Life Insurance Corporation of India. He retired in the cadre of  Deputy Zonal Manager. Prior to retirement he had extensive experience as Assistant Branch Manager (Sales), Senior Branch Manager, Marketing Manager and Senior Divisional Manager.

Training is his passion. He brings his vast and diverse marketing experiences to the classroom. His effective coaching methods have been highly appreciated by his trainees. He brings many new ideas to team building in life insurance selling.

Dumbre joined IIST in 2014.

Himanshu C. Shah has more than 50 years of experience in life insurance. He retired as Senior Divisional Manager at Life Insurance Corporation of India. He is highly passionate about training sales teams. He has mentored many development officer teams at LIC and also mentored many agents to achieve MDRT status. His incisive insights on life insurance markets has helped many salespersons to achieve high productivity. Shah operates the Power House Academy through which he mentors development officers and agents.

Shah believes that sharing of knowledge is profitable to all concerned, while not sharing is a loss for everyone. He is on a mission mode to educate the sales force to create an awareness for providing adequate insurance.

At IIST, Shah is a highly respected coach by his trainees. Bringing a high degree of energy into the classroom he energizes the trainees to try for higher performances.

Shah joined IIST in 2017.

M.P. Jain has 50 years of experience in life insurance, including administrative and marketing at Life Insurance Corporation of India. He retired as Principal of the Sales Training Centre at Ajmer. Prior to that he was the Senior Divisional Manager at Nashik and Bikaner. He is also a Fellow of the Insurance Institute of India.

Jain brings his experience to the classroom, benefiting hundreds of his trainees. He is highly respected by his trainees because of the value he brings to the classroom.

Jain joined IIST in 2014.

N. Ashok Kumar founded of The Institute of Insurance Sales Training in 2005. Prior to this he was the Head of Training at Bajaj Allianz Life Insurance Company.

He also has also worked at Symbiosis Institute of Business Management as a lecturer, in Symbiosis Centre for Management and HRD as a Professor and in ICFAI Business School as the Dean. He taught the subjects of financial management, portfolio analysis and project management at these MBA institutions. He has also undertaken research in economics, management and finance for 10 years at The Times Research Foundation.

Ashok Kumar has provided consultancy services to the UNDP, European Union, Government of India, Government of Maharashtra and many private companies. Ashok Kumar has written one book for life insurance salespersons – You Are the Modern Financial Advisor (2008), and another book on the tall claims of the investment sector – Ignis Fatuus: The Delusions Created in You and For You by the Investment Sector (2024).

He has trained over 5000 persons drawn from the top management of life insurance companies to agents, on selling and managing salespersons in life insurance, over the last 25 years. He also specializes in developing specialized training content, designing training methodology and pedagogy for sales training.

G.D. Mishra has 50 years of experience in life insurance. 40 of those years were spent at the Life Insurance Corporation of India. Mishra retired in the Senior Divisional Manager Cadre as a Faculty Member at Zonal Training Centre, LIC, Gurugram. Prior to that he held positions of Assistant Branch Manager (Sales), Senior Branch Manager, Manager (Sales) and Senior Divisional Manger at various divisions of LIC. He also worked as a Faculty Member at the prestigious Management Development Centre of LIC at Borivali.

Mishra is a qualified trainer, having earned the Diploma for Trainers from the Indian Society of Training and Development (ISTD). His knowledge of training methods and his marketing experience has drawn him to his trainees who have a high level of respect for him as a trainer.

Mishra Joined IIST in 2014.

D.S.R. Murthy has over 40 years of experience in life insurance. He retired of india from Life Insurance Corporation as Faculty Member in the Deputy Zonal Manager cadre at the Zonal Training Centre, Hyderabad. Prior to that he held positions as Branch Manager, Senior Branch Manager, Chief Manager and Marketing Manager. He is a Fellow of the Insurance Institute of India.

Murthy brings immense passion and immense patience into the classroom. Loved by his trainees, Murthy has positively changed the lives and careers of many of his trainees.

He has worked in IIST since 2013

Sunish Shrivastava is a successful Development Officer and Senior Business Associate at Life Insurance Corporation of India. On retirement from LIC, Shrivastava set up Wealth Seva and Dream Invest. Through these organisations Shrivastava manages more than Rs. 1000 crores of risk for more than 1500 customers. He is highly qualified, having earned (apart from other certifications), the PGDBM, CFP, Certified Business Risk Analyst and Chartered Trust and Estate Planner.

Shrivastava strongly believes in the four pillars of excellence: Ethics, Knowledge, Soft Skills and Business Strategies. His belief in these 4 pillars as a foundation for good work endears him to the hundreds of development officers and agents he has trained. He was looked up to as a knowledgeable development officer who would be highly sought after by other development officers within LIC.

Sunish Shrivastava was the first development officer to be trained by IIST at LIC and we at IIST are proud to have him with us.