Nitin Nohria
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A profile
Sources:
1. The Times of India, Chidanand Rajghatta,
2. [ From the archives of the Times of India]
Nohria became the tenth dean of Harvard Business School on July 1, 2010. Has taught courses across.
Harvard’s MBA, PhD programs, also visiting faculty member at London Business School in 1996
An India-born professor and IIT alumnus who has long championed a pledge for organizational leaders and managers on the lines of the Hippocratic oath for doctors to enhance accountability in the corporate world has been named dean of the prestigious Harvard Business School.
Nitin Nohria, currently Richard P Chapman Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School (HBS), will become the school’s 10th dean, Harvard president Drew Faust announced on Tuesday.
Nohria is the first Indian, indeed the first non-white, to become dean of the 102-yearold institution that typically ranks among the world’s top three business schools. He will take up his new role on July 1, succeeding Jay Light, who in December announced his plans to retire at the end of the 2009-10 academic year after five years as dean.
Nohria is the latest of nearly half a dozen dons of Indian-origin who have gone on to lead prestigious business schools, a list that includes Dipak Jain, who became Dean of Kellogg School of Business in 2001; Mahendra Gupta who was Dean of the Olin School of Business at Washington University in St Louis; and Yash Gupta, who was Dean at University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business.
At HBS itself, Nohria is among some 25 teachers of Indian-origin in a faculty of just over 200. While Nohria’s current academic interests include the theory and practice of leadership, the analysis of management practices critical to corporate success, and the strategic and organizational challenges of globalization, he is best known recently for promoting a version of the Hippocratic oath for business leaders, an idea he developed with Harvard colleague Rakesh Khurana.
IIT TO HBS
Nitin Nohria, 48, is the 10th dean at Harvard Business School and the first Indian to head it in its 102-yr history
Nohria did his BTech from IIT-Bombay in 1984, and got a PhD in management in 1988 from
MIT’s Sloan School of management where his doctoral thesis won an award
Began teaching at HBS as asst prof in 1988, named Richard P Chapman Professor of Business Administration in 1999. Currently senior associate dean for faculty development and chair of organizational behaviour unit
Has co-written or co-edited 16 books, authored more than 50 articles. Interests include leadership and globalization. Has proposed a Hippocratic oath for business leaders
IIT taught him to think out of box
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 NITIN NOHRIA
Hemali Chhapia & Amrita Ghaswalla | TNN The Times of India
After spending four years on the verdant Powai campus of IIT-Bombay, 21-year-old Nitin Nohria surely knew one thing: ‘‘I did not want to be a chemical engineer. That is the most important thing I learned in IIT.’’ But when he came to receive his distinguished alumnus award in 2007, he told the institute director Ashok Misra that it was here that he learnt to think out of the box. The year 1984 was when this young chemical engineer walked out of his dull whitewashed room, his was the time when hostel life had seen some luxurious additions — ceiling fans had just been installed and students were charged Rs 20 a month for that comfort.
Nohria was a popular name during those years; he was on several student committees, recalled Shanta Sreeraman, a staff member who has been with the institute for over three decades. Young Nohria spent time mixing chemicals and his teacher Arvind Kuchadkar would watch him and tell himself that the young lad was cut out for management. ‘‘His interest was not limited to engineering. I could see his leaning towards a variety of subjects including humanities and management.’’
In fact, Kuchadkar who has been in touch with his student believes, ‘‘Nitin will bring freshness to Harvard because of all that he has picked up while carving his niche in management with ethics.’’ Son of K K Nohria, former chairman of Crompton Greaves, did go on to study management at the Sloan School of Business at MIT.
Later he went on to become the youngest professor when he went to Harvard in 1988, and now, the youngest dean. Nohria, said K P Madhavan, his former faculty at IIT-B, who used to see him play football, he has only upped the bar for himself. Nohria’s book — Master Passions — his former teachers says, reflects a kind of truth few human beings want to even acknowledge. The book, coauthored with a faculty from the Toronto University, gets under the skin of human beings — it delves into the rational explanation of every action and reveals that there ‘‘often lies a willingness to hurt or even destroy others to fuel our own ambitions or quench the fires of envy’’.
A student who did not make it to the IIT in the first round, Nohria has not shied away from taking the tough road. Or for that matter, ask harsh questions. ‘‘Why is there a disconnect between mission and everyday practice?’’ he asks in his work ‘Handbook of Leadership Theory and Practice’ As the new HBS head, he’ll probably bridge those two points, and that’s why his former teacher S L Narayanamurthy believes he’ll live up to the HBS’s formal mission statement: ‘‘to educate leaders who make a difference in the world.’’
How HBS selects its dean
There is an advisory committee of the business school that Drew Faust, the Harvard University president, consults. The committee takes a view of probable candidates who could become the dean of the business school. Over several months, Faust consulted the 15-member advisory committee that consisted of 12 faculty members from the B-School itself and three professors from other schools within the University.
They met almost every week. The Harvard president also sought advice from other members of the Business School community for selecting the dean.
Nohria will succeed Jay Light, who in December 2009 announced his retirement at the end of the 2009-10 academic year. Light served as HBS dean for five years and spent four decades as HBS faculty member. TNN The Times of India
