Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Ahmedabad Director Ashish Nanda has announced his resignation from the post citing personal reasons for the decision.
Prof. Nanda said the resignation would take effect from September 1, 2017. He is stepping down on completing four years of his 5-year tenure.
In a letter written to the IIM Ahmedabad community, Prof Nanda said, professionally, he had enjoyed the experience at the IIM and learnt a lot.
“However, personally, living a long distance from my wife and son has been a challenge. When I joined, I had committed to serving at most one term. On September 1, it will be four years, to the day, since I took charge. It is a good time to step aside and to hand over the responsibility and honour of leading the Institute to the next, fortunate person. I will hand over responsibilities of director at the end of that day,” he added.
Prof Nanda said he would always be available to help the Institute and contribute to effect a smooth transition.
“This is as good a time as any for leadership transition at the Institute. Thus, I have requested IIMA Chairman Mr Birla that I step aside from the position of director, and he has graciously acceded to my request,”
In the letter, he said, “These past three and a half years, I have woken up every day feeling fortunate to be working for an institution that has contributed tremendously to me. I feel privileged to have followed in the footsteps of people I greatly admire, to have had the opportunity to lead the Institute at a crucial time in its trajectory, and to have contributed to the best of my ability to its continuing success.
“I believe we are at a point when there is alignment among various constituencies of the Institute as to the direction we ought to follow and considerable momentum along the path that we are following. We have a committed and enthusiastic chairman providing vision and guidance, a wise and engaged board, faculty that is productive and energized, staff that is loyal and devoted, brilliant and hard working students, a diaspora of alumni committed to the Institute’s long-term success, governmental support for operating autonomously to achieve our dreams, and industry that respects and values the Institute.
“This is as good a time as any for leadership transition at the Institute. Thus, I have requested IIMA Chairman Mr Birla that I step aside from the position of director, and he has graciously acceded to my request,” he added.
Kumar Mangalam Birla, Chairman, IIMA Board of Governors expressed his gratitude for Professor Nanda’s outstanding contribution to IIMA.
Before joining IIM Ahmedabad, Prof. Nanda was Robert Braucher Professor of Practice at Harvard Law School, where he taught in the JD program and was faculty director of Executive Education, faculty director of Case Development Initiative, and research director at Program on the Legal Profession. He has been working as Director at IIM Ahmedabad since 2013.
Professor Nanda has a PhD in Business Economics (Harvard), AM in Economics (Harvard), PGDM in Management (IIM Ahmedabad), and B.Tech. in Electrical Engineering (IIT Delhi).
During his tenure, IIM Ahmedabad topped the management institutions category in the India Rankings 2017, the 2nd edition of the ranking for higher institutions of learning released by the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) on March 4. It was placed 2nd in the first edition of the rankings in 2016.
Ranked 30th in the FT (Financial Times) Global MBA Ranking 2014, IIMA was at number two position in the ‘Career Progress Rank’. In 2015, it rose to occupy 26th rank and 24th in 2016 ranking but slipped to 29th in 2017.
Prof. Nanda’s tenure also saw several new initiatives including increasing the number of seats for its 1-year Post-Graduate Program for Executives (PGPX) to 120 from the earlier 85. In January 2017, IIMA launched a new two-year e-Post Graduate Programme in Management (ePGP) for working executives and entrepreneurs that combines online and classroom learning. Rolled out in association with Hughes Global Education, an online learning solutions provider as the technology partner, it marked IIMA’s entry into online education.
In July 2016, the IIM added three research chairs aimed at boosting research work among faculty peers within the institute and also attract quality talent from outside. The three chairs are Nabard Chair in Agribusiness, RBI Chair in Finance & Economics and JSW Chair in Innovation & Public Policy. This was for the first time in three years that the Institute is setting up research chairs.
On the occasion, Prof. Nanda had said 12 more chairs would be announced in the near future. These chairs will be backed by donors including Infosys, ICICI Bank, Edelweiss, PwC, SAP and Crisil, among others.(Image Source:Wikipedia.org)
