Indian-origin academician Srikant Datar named dean of Harvard Business School

Srikant M Datar, an alumnus of Mumbai University and IIM Ahmedabad, has been named the new dean of Harvard University’s business school.

Datar will succeed Nitin Nohria, another Indian-American, and will be the second dean of Indian origin at Harvard University, with Rakesh Khurana, who heads Harvard College.

“Srikant Datar is an innovative educator, a distinguished scholar and a deeply experienced academic leader,” Harvard University president Lawrence Bacow said while announcing the appointment on Friday, as cited in a post on the Harvard Business School’s (HBS) website. “He is a leading thinker about the future of business education, and he has recently played an essential role in HBS’s creative response to the challenges posed by the Covid-19 pandemic.”

Datar will be the 11th dean of the prestigious school.

He joined the HBS faculty in 1996 after teaching stints at Carnegie Mellon and Stanford. He started his higher education at University of Mumbai - it was called University of Bombay at that time - and his next stop was the Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Ahmedabad.

“I am humbled and honoured to take on this role,” said Datar. “Harvard Business School is an institution with a remarkable legacy of impact in research, education and practice. Yet, the events of the past year have hastened our passage to an unforeseen future. I look forward to working with colleagues and friends of the School - including throughout Harvard, in our Boston community, and around the world - to realise our mission in what undoubtedly will be an exciting new era.”

Nohria, who also studied in Mumbai, had been HBS dean for more than 10 years, starting in 2010. Nohria had announced plans to step down last November, but stayed on in view of the pandemic.

“Srikant is an outstanding choice as Harvard Business School’s next dean,” Nohria said. “He has thought deeply about the challenges and opportunities facing management education, and has a proven record of collaboration, innovation and leadership - not only within HBS, but across Harvard and at other organisations.”

The HBS post called Datar “a prominent thinker and innovator” on the future of business education.

He has co-authored Rethinking the MBA: Business Education at a Crossroads, and has developed courses on “Developing Mindsets for Innovative Problem Solving” and “Managing with Data Science”.