At MBA Schools, Indians Go to the Top
By Tripti Lahiri
Come January, Indian-origin business experts will head at least two MBA programs that regularly feature in top-10 rankings of U.S. business schools.
On Wednesday, the University of Chicago announced that Sunil Kumar, an operations management expert who teaches at the Stanford University Graduate School of Business, will become dean of the Chicago Booth School of Business starting January 1.
“Sunil has the key decision-making skills, acquires the necessary amount of information before he acts and is inclusive. He’s the whole package,” John Huizinga, chairman of the business school’s dean search committee told the Wall Street Journal.
Mr. Kumar was born and raised in India and completed a master’s in computer science and automation at the Indian Institute of Science before going on to do a Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, a statement from the school said.
Meanwhile, on July 1, Nitin Nohria, a leadership and ethics expert, took over as head of the Holy Grail of business schools for Indians, becoming 10th dean of the Harvard Business School.
It’s not surprising to see Indian-origin candidates take the top position at business schools. For decades Indian students have made up a large proportion of the student bodies at many international business schools—it was viewed as a more interesting option to studying engineering or medicine, Mr. Nohria said in Mumbai on Thursday on his first visit to India since his appointment.
And many of them have gone on to climb the ranks at B-schools, holding top faculty positions. In fact, there might have been three Indians heading top 10 B-schools in the U.S., but Sally Blount replaced Dipak Jain as the head of the Kellogg Graduate School of Management in September.
Although a few are starting to question the importance Indians place on the degree, B-school remains a popular next step for Indians with bachelor’s degrees. And vice-versa, Indians remain an important source of talent (and fees) for the schools. Duke’s Fuqua School of Business says that Indians make up a large portion of its student body, and the school has a center in India. Across the pond, about 10% of the student body of the London Business School is Indian, the school said last month.
Mr. Kumar’s and Mr. Nohria’s appointments have been widely reported in India, which tends to take a fair amount of interest in the achievements of its diaspora.
“What surprised me was the extraordinary response I have received from the people of India,” said Mr. Nohria on Thursday. HBS spokesman Brian Kenney who is traveling with Mr. Nohria said that excitement in India was at “fever pitch” in a blog post about Mr. Nohria’s “world introductory tour.”
Mr. Nohria says he received congratulatory e-mails even from villages.
“It is an expression of collective expectations and hope,” said Mr. Nohria, who studied at IIT, Mumbai, before going to MIT’s Sloan School of Management. “They are saying ‘If Nitin can do it, I can do it’.”
—Eric Bellman contributed to this post.
Source: http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2010/07/29/at-mba-schools-indians-go-to-the-top/
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Filed Under: Education • India • PIO • PIO Diaspora • Personalities • World
