Harvard Business School gets its first Indian-origin Dean

Yoshita Singh
Chicago, May 5 (PTI) Harvard Business School has
appointed Indian-origin Nitin Nohria as its 10th Dean, making
him the first member from the community to occupy the post in
the prestigious institution's 102-year old history.
Nohria, the Richard P Chapman Professor of Business
Administration at Harvard Business School (HBS), will take up
his new role on July 1, President Drew Faust said Wednesday.
A scholar of leadership and organisational change,
Nohria has previously been the School's senior associate dean
for faculty development and chair of its organisational
behaviour unit.
A current co-chair of the HBS Leadership Initiative
and member of the HBS faculty since 1988, Nohria succeeds Jay
Light, who in December announced his plans to retire at the
end of the 2009-10 academic year after five years as dean and
four decades of service on the HBS faculty.
"At a pivotal moment for Harvard Business School and
for business education more generally, I'm delighted that
Nitin Nohria has agreed to lead HBS forward. He's an
outstanding scholar, teacher and mentor, with a global outlook
and an instinct for collaboration across traditional
boundaries," Faust said.
On his appointment as Dean, Nohria said, "I feel a
profound sense of responsibility for continuing Harvard
Business School's proud legacy of groundbreaking ideas and
transformational educational experiences.
With business education at an inflection point, we
must strive to equip future leaders with the competence and
character to address emerging global business and social
challenges".
He said as the school enters its second century, he is
looking forward to working with the faculty and students "to
forge a vision for Harvard Business School that will enable it
to remain a beacon for business education for the next 100
years".
Nohria received his bachelor of technology degree in
chemical engineering in 1984 from the IIT Mumbai, which
awarded him its distinguished alumnus medal in 2007.
He received his Ph.D. in management in 1988 from the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Sloan School of
Management, where he earned the outstanding doctoral thesis
award in behavioral and policy sciences.
He joined the HBS faculty as an assistant professor in
1988, was appointed associate professor in 1993, was promoted
to tenure in 1997, and became the Richard P.
Chapman Professor of Business Administration in 1999.
"Nohria will be a wonderful dean of Harvard Business
School," said Light.
"He is widely respected within our extended community
as a perceptive scholar of leadership and as a thoughtful and
able academic leader. PTI