Ahmedabad, 23 August 2013

Ahead of his joining date 2nd September, new director of India’s topmost business school IIM-Ahmedabad Ashish Nanda today interacted with the media persons at IIMA campus.

Nanda who presently serves as professor at Harvard Law School in America was of opinion that IIMA should have better student diversity and closer alumni linkages. He spoke on these points when asked to compare Harvard and IIMA.

Mr. Nanda said that during his visit to IIMA classroom, he asked how may of the students were from engineering background and 95% of them raised their hands. In Harvard one can find people from various backgrounds; someone may be a historian, someone else from computer background, someone an arts graduate. He said geographical diversity was also very important. One could find students from Azerbaijan, Africa, China, Mexico and varieties of nations in Harvard campus, but IIMA at present doesn’t enjoy such a rich diversity.

He said at Harvard people are very well connected to alumni. IIMA has a very good set of alumni but linkages are not as strong as what one can find at Harvard.

Nanda said the business schools in west and in the U.S. are positioned as centre for global economy. In a new world where countries like China and India have emerged as global player, the centre of excellence will spread in wider geography, and in next ten years that shall be a major opportunity for IIMA.