A consortium is an association of two or more individuals, companies, organizations or governments (or any combination of these entities) with the objective of participating in a common activity or pooling their resources for achieving a common goal.

Consortium is a Latin word, meaning 'partnership, association or society' and derives from consors 'partner', itself from con- 'together' and sors 'fate', meaning owner of means or comrade.

The Committee on Institutional Cooperation and Five Colleges, Inc., along with the Claremont Consortium are among of the oldest and most successful higher education consortia in the United States. The Committee on Institutional Cooperation includes the members of the Big Ten athletic conference plus the University of Chicago. The participants in Five Colleges, Inc. are: Amherst College, Hampshire College, Mount Holyoke College, Smith College, and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Another example of a successful consortium is the Five Colleges of Ohio of Ohio: Oberlin College, Ohio Wesleyan University, Kenyon College, College of Wooster and Denison University. The aforementioned Claremont Consortium (known as the Claremont Colleges) consists of Pomona College, Scripps College, Claremont Graduate University, Claremont McKenna College, Harvey Mudd College, Pitzer College, and the Keck Graduate Institute. These consortia have pooled the resources of their member colleges and the university to share human and material assets as well as to link academic and administrative resources.

Vijay Mallya (Kannada: ವಿಜಯ್ ಮಲ್ಯ; born on December 18, 1955 in Calcutta, West Bengal, India) is an industrialist and a second-time member of India's parliament. He is the chairman of the UB Group – one of India's largest conglomerates,^{[citation needed]} with diverse interests in brewing, distilling, aviation, pharmaceuticals, real estate, engineering, fertilizers, biotechnology and information technology.

He is the son of industrialist Vittal Mallya. He took over as the chairman of the company at the age of 28 after his father's sudden demise in 1983.

Mallya attended the La Martiniere, Calcutta boys school, and graduated with a Bachelor in Commerce degree from St. Xavier's College, Kolkata. While in college, Mallya was interning in his family businesses. After he graduated, he interned at the American part of Hoechst in the United States.^{[not in citation given]}

At the time of his father's death, Mallya was unanimously elected Chairman of United Breweries. As part of his modernisation bid, he consolidated the various companies under one umbrella group called the "UB Group", spun off non-core and loss-making businesses and focused on the core business of beverage alcohol.Kingfisher beer controls more than 50 per cent market share of India's beer market. The beer is available in 52 countries outside India and leads the way among Indian beers in the international market.United Spirits Ltd, the flagship of the UB Group, has achieved the historic milestone of selling 114 million cases, becoming the largest spirits company in the world by volume.