Indian to head US business school

MA Venkataraman will take over as dean of Indiana Univ's undergrad biz school, reports S Rajagopalan.

Indian academics have never had it so good in American business schools. As many as five of them now have an Indian as their dean. And tomorrow, a sixth one will be taking over as the undergraduate programme chair at Indiana University's well-regarded Kelley School of Business in Bloomington.

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Announcing the appointment of Chennai native MA Venkataraman to the post, the school's interim dean Dan Smith said: "Venkat will be an exceptional leader of our undergraduate programme. Professor Venkat is a visionary and innovative leader with an incredible work ethic and a contagious 'can do' attitude."

The school's Bloomington undergraduate programme with some 3,000 students has for long been one of the largest and most recognised in the world. It is placed 11th in the latest US News & World Report rankings.

The 47-year-old Venkataramanan came to the US in the early 1980s and earned a master's in business computing science and doctorate in management from Texas A&M University. He has been with the Kelley School faculty since 1987.

Indians serving as deans in US business schools include the renowned Dipak C Jain at the Kellogg Graduate School of Management, Northwestern University; Yash Gupta, Marshall School of Business, University of Southern California; Avijit Ghosh, College of Business, University of Illinois; Ajay Patel, Babcock Graduate School of Management, Wake Forest University; and Mahendra Gupta, Olin School of Business, Washington University, Missouri.

All these prestigious appointments have come about over the last four years -- Jain and Ghosh in 2001, Patel and Yash Gupta last year, Mahendra Gupta in April and Venkataramanan now.