After remaining virtually headless for 10 months, the Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad will get its new Director, Ashish Nanda, an alumni of the same campus, on September 2.
Established in 1961, this was, perhaps, the first time that the IIM-A had to wait this long for the successor to Prof Samir K Barua, whose five-year term ended in November 2012.
Prof Nanda is an IIM-A alumni from the 1983 batch. The premier business school had, for the first time in its history, advertised its Director’s post globally, seeking a candidate with global experience.
Announcing his appointment on Wednesday evening, the IIM-A said in a statement that Prof Nanda would be visiting the campus for a few days from August 15 to meet the staff and faculty before assuming the charge of his alma mater on September 2.
Prof Nanda is a Robert Braucher Professor of Practice at the prestigious Harvard Law School. He is a gold medalist from both the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi (IIT-D) and IIM-A. He completed his MA in Economics and PhD from Harvard University and has been teaching courses at Harvard Law School and Harvard Business School. He is a faculty director of Executive Education and research director at Program on the Legal Profession, Harvard Law School.
While appointing the new Director, A.M. Naik, Chairman, Board of Governors and Society, IIM-A, said Prof Nanda, an alumnus with impeccable academic records, with decades of experience in international schools, brings the right mix of international experience and familiarity with the IIM-A.
The IIM-A’s board had constituted a search committee to look for a new director in June 2012. It shortlisted three candidates, including Prof Nanda, in March 2013, whose names were sent to the Union Ministry of Human Resource Development. He is the first director of IIM-A to have been selected in an open and competitive process.