Indian gurus at top US business schools

It is a small, but growing community of very intelligent people - of Indian origin and now leading thought at some of America's best business schools.

These men have acquired big degrees and bigger reputations on their way to the top of the heap. But it is pertinent that many of them began their journey at an Indian Institute of Technology.

Here is a look at eight men who are shaping the minds of future leaders as they run these management schools and leave a distinct Indian imprint on US and global education.

Soumitra Dutta was appointed as Dean of the Ivy League Cornell University in January this year.

His five-year term will begin from July 1, 2012. He is currently the Roland Berger Chaired Professor of Business and Technology and the founder and academic director of eLab, INSEAD which he joined in 1989.

Dutta is an IIT Delhi alumnus.

He completed his B Tech from IIT Delhi and then got a PhD in computer science and a masters in business administration from the University of California at Berkeley.

An IIT Bombay alumnus too, Nitin Nohria was appointed as Dean of Harvard Business School in July 2010.

Before this, Mr Nohria was the Richard P Chapman professor of business administration at the same school.

Mr Nohria is also a co-chair of the Harvard Business School (HBS) Leadership Initiative. He previously served as a senior associate dean for faculty development and chair of the organizational behaviour unit.

He joined the Harvard Business School (HBS) faculty as an assistant professor in 1988 and was appointed associate professor in 1993. He was promoted in 1997 and became the Richard P Chapman Professor of Business Administration in 1999.

Mr Nohria completed his bachelor of technology in chemical engineering from IIT Bombay in 1984.

Another Indian, Sunil Kumar, was appointed Dean at Chicago's Booth School of Business for five years starting January 1, 2011.

In this role, he oversees the school's MBA program and also leads the faculty groups in marketing and organizational behaviour.

Earlier, Mr Kumar was a professor of operations, information and technology and an expert in operations research at the Stanford University Graduate School of Business. Mr Kumar is the second Stanford MBA faculty member tapped to lead a top B-school.

He got a master of engineering degree in computer science and automation from the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore and a Bachelor of Engineering degree from Mangalore University in Surathkal.

He then earned a PhD in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Jaishankar Ganesh was appointed Dean of Rutgers School of Business-Camden in August 1, 2010. Earlier, he served as an associate dean for administration and executive education at the University of Central Florida's (UCF) College of Business Administration.

He completed his MBA and PhD in marketing and international business from the University of Houston.

He then got a bachelor's degree in instrument technology from the Madras Institute of Technology at Anna University and a bachelor's degree in physics from the Loyola Autonomous College at the University of Madras.

Early in his career, he worked as an engineer at HCL India.

Anand Anandalingam was appointed Dean of Robert H Smith School of Business, University of Maryland in August 2008.

Mr Anandalingam served at the University of Pennsylvania for nearly 15 years where he was the National Center Professor of Resource and Technology Management, and a professor at both the Engineering School and the Wharton School.

Mr Anandalingam began his academic career as an assistant professor at the University of Virginia.

He got his BA and MA from Cambridge University and an MS and PhD from Harvard University.

There are other dons blazing a trail in education. S Shankar Sastry is the Dean of Engineering at Univeristy of California, Berkeley.

In 2000, he served as director of the Information Technology Office at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

Mr Sastry served as chair of the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences (EECS) at UC Berkeley from January 2001 to June 2004.

Mr Sastry did his bachelors in technology from Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay in 1977.

He received his masters and PhD degrees from University of California, Berkeley.

Dipak C Jain is the Dean of INSEAD, a leading international business school.

Earlier, Mr Jain served as dean of Kellogg School of Management for eight years till September 2009. Mr Jain joined Kellogg in 1986 as an assistant professor.

Since 1994, he has served as a Sandy and Morton Goldman Professor of Entrepreneurial Studies and professor of marketing in Kellogg.

Mr Jain is a graduate from Guwahati University. He did his Masters in management science and a PhD in marketing from the University of Texas at Dallas.

Pradeep K Khosla is currently the Dean at the College of Engineering at Carnegie Mellon.

Before this, he served as a founding director, Carnegie Mellon CyLab; head at Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering; director at Information Networking Institute among others.

Mr Khosla received a B Tech (Hons) from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur in 1980.

After graduating, he worked in the area of real-time control with Tata Consulting Engineers and Siemens until 1982.

By 1986, he received both an MS and PhD from Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), where he joined as an assistant professor.