The Telegraph : 21 Sep 2010
Assam’s son named INSEAD dean- GU graduate from Tezpur to take up post at international business school Boston, Sept. 20 (PTI): Dipak Jain, who did his schooling in Tezpur and is an alumnus of Darrang College and Gauhati University, has been named the dean of INSEAD, a leading international business school. Jain, dean emeritus at Northwestern University’s prestigious Kellogg School of Management, will succeed J. Frank Brown, who will step down in 2011. Jain’s sister, Renu, who lives with their youngest brother, Atul, at Rohtak in Haryana, told The Telegraph over phone that Dipak had gone to Paris on a holiday-cum-school scouting early this month. “He said yes to the offer from Paris-based INSEAD on September 14 and will join in February-March. He left Kellogg as he wanted a change and this offer came his way. Change is always for the good. He is happy… we are also very happy for him,” she said. Jain’s family, which hails from Tezpur’s Kumarchuburi area, has now shifted to Rohtak where Atul run a nut and bolt factory. Atul said their older brother Ravi is a Chicago-based tax consultant while the eldest, Promode, is associated with a private company in Calcutta. Jain had last visited Tezpur in March 2007 and Rohtak in July 2 this year. Manideep Raj, a senior faculty member at Darrang College, Tezpur, who was among the few to meet Jain during his one-and-half-hour whirwind visit to the garrison town in 2007, told The Telegraph, “Nothing amazes us now. Despite his achievement, he remains very down to earth, not forgetting his humble beginnings. A memory from our student days that I wish to share about Dipak is how he used to practise maths on slate so that he could save on paper and money.” Jain was supposed to deliver the Foundation Day lecture of Assam Institute of Management in Guwahati on January 5 but the plan did not materialise. Shantikam Hazarika, the director of Assam Institute of Management — the only fully autonomous management institute in the country to be promoted by a state government — told The Telegraph that Jain had himself confirmed “the plan to deliver the lecture”. But he could not come as he had been diagnosed with wine flu. “Jain had also planned to visit Tezpur, his hometown, during the visit,” Hazarika said, adding, “It would have been a dream to see him deliver the lecture,” he said. Hazarika said he was happy to learn of Jain’s new role. “I can only wish him well.” Jain will be introduced at INSEAD’s Leadership Summit Asia 2010 to be held on November 12 in Singapore and will assume his duties as dean in March 2011. Among Jain’s responsibilities as the dean of INSEAD would be to look for opportunities to build the institute’s programmes in India and China. “What attracts me to INSEAD is that it is a true global brand in management education, one with enduring passion and inspired vision. The values that drive INSEAD — including a deep respect for the power of diversity; a desire to link theory and practice to address important managerial issues; and an entrepreneurial approach to teaching and research — are ideal to meet the opportunities and challenges facing organisations in the coming years,” Jain said. The chairman of the INSEAD board, Franz Humer, said, “I am pleased that someone of Dipak Jain’s calibre and values will continue to develop the school. The board chose Dipak Jain to lead INSEAD into what is fast becoming a new global economic climate — one in which emerging markets are growing at a faster rate than the industrialised mature economies of Europe and North America. In this environment we need to teach solid business and management skills while being innovative, entrepreneurial and instilling a culture of true sustainability.” Jain, a graduate of Gauhati University, received a Masters in Management Science and a PhD in marketing from the University of Texas, Dallas. At Kellogg, the Indian American academician was the Sandy and Morton Goldman professor in entrepreneurial studies and professor of marketing, a chair he held since 1994. He stepped down from the post of dean (which he held from 2001) last summer but remained a professor. A renowned scholar in marketing and entrepreneurship, Jain has published some 60 articles in scholarly and professional journals and three books. He has lectured at universities throughout the world and is the recipient of numerous awards for teaching and scholarship. Foreign affairs adviser to the Prime Minister of Thailand (2002-2006), Jain also received an honorary doctorate in economics from Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, in 2009 and IPADE, Mexico, this year. Apart from teaching, Jain is currently involved in two social projects — creating a business school in Bangladesh, focusing on entrepreneurship and small business management for women from countries such as Afghanistan, Sri Lanka and Pakistan; and starting a full-fledged university in Angola. “Management education must include social and environmental elements of the ecosystem. For global prosperity and peace to come in the world, we have to target women. These are all values that are central to INSEAD, which has always had a global approach, has emphasised diversity in its faculty, staff, and student body, and strives for innovation backed by intensive research,” Jain said. Jain is also a director of John Deere, the Northern Trust, Reliance Industries and Media Bank. He is a part of a growing list of Indian-origin academicians assuming leading roles at foreign universities. Harvard Business School got its first Indian-origin dean in Nitin Nohria this year, while University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business named Stanford University professor Sunil Kumar as its dean in July this year.
