Srikant M Datar, Indian-origin academician and economist, who is an alumnus of Mumbai University and IIM Ahmedabad has been appointed as the new dean of the Harvard Business School. He will resume his position from January 1, 2021.
Srikant Datar will succeed Nitin Nohria, another Indian America, will be the second consecutive dean of Indian origin of Harvard University, which is a prestigious 112-year-old business school in Boston.
Harvard President Larry Bacow described Srikant Datar as an innovative educator, an experienced academic leader and a noble scholar who will bring great advantage to the university with his knowledge. He also said that Datar is a leading thinker about the future of business education.
Mr Bacow said, “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.”
Adding stars to his wonderful long career, Mr Bacow said that Datar has served with distinction in a range of leadership positions over his nearly 25 years at HBS, while also forging novel collaborations with other Harvard Schools.
Datar will make for 11th dean of the prestigious school that is considered amongst the top business schools in the US and the world. In 1996, Datar joined HBS after teaching stints at Carnegie Mellon and Stanford, where he had also studied for his two masters in statistics and economics and PhD. He later started his higher education at the University of Mumbai and the next place was Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad.
“I am equal measures humbled and honoured to take on this role. 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 realize our mission in what undoubtedly will be an exciting new era,” said Srikant.
Datar will be succeeding Nohria, who is also IIT Mumbai alumnus. He has served as HBS dean for more than 10 years, starting in 2010. Later that year in 2010, Ratan Tata, HBS alumni, had donated $50 million to the school for a residential and academic building which is named as Tata Hall. Nohria had announced plans to step down as dean by the end of June 20 but stayed on given the pandemic.
Noharia said, “Srikant is an outstanding choice as Harvard Business School’s next dean “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 organizations.” The HBS post called Datar “a prominent thinker and innovator” on the future of business education. He co-authored “Rethinking the MBA: Business Education at a Crossroads”, and has developed new courses on “Developing Mindsets for Innovative Problem Solving” and “Managing with Data Science”.
The university posted that Datar is focusing on cost management and control, strategy implementation, and governance and is working in areas such as “design thinking and innovative problem solving, as well as machine learning and artificial intelligence”.