IIMA gets two new board members

Ahmedabad, 28 September, 2013

Mr A.M. Naik, Chairman, BoGs, IIMA today appointed Prof. Vasant Gandhi and Prof. Rekha Jain to the IIMA Board as faculty representatives on the recommendation of Prof Ashish Nanda, Director, IIMA.

Presented below are brief profiles of the Prof Gandhi and Prof Jain:

Prof. Vasant P. Gandhi

Prof. Vasant Gandhi is Ph.D. from Stanford University, and a gold medallist of IIM Ahmedabad. He has worked with the World Bank in Washington DC and with the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) in Washington. He has been Visiting Professor at the University of Sydney, and the James Cook University in Australia. At IIM Ahmedabad, Prof. Gandhi has served as Chairman of Alumni Relations, of the Post Graduate Programme in Agri-Business Management, and of the Centre for Management in Agriculture. The PGP-ABM programme designed by Prof. Gandhi and his team is currently ranked no. 1 in the world. He has been a consultant/ advisor to the World Bank, FAO, the World Food Program, Government of India, various state governments, and private and public sector companies. He is on the Board of Directors of several companies. He has worked extensively on new-institutional economics, designing effective institutions for water resource management, strategic marketing of food and agro products, technology management in agriculture, food policy, and investment behaviour.

Prof Rekha Jain

Prof. Rekha Jain is currently the Executive Chair of the IIMA-IDEA Telecom Centre of Excellence. She has consulted with several national and international organizations in the area of Telecom Policy and ICT Strategy. Her research and teaching interest are in telecom policy and regulation, rural telecom, ICT Strategy and Management, and Information System Implementation. She has also worked on leadership issues for Women in IT.

Her recent focus of work has been on Infrastructure Development and Public Private Partnerships. She has several publications in national and international journals and is an editorial board member of Journal of Global Information Management (JGIM) and Board Member of several professional organizations. She has been and continues to be a member of several national level committees in the telecom and IT sectors.

She has worked with both international and domestic organizations, including World Bank, DFID, Commonwealth Telecommunications Organization, IDRC, Department of Telecommunications, NASSCOM, Department of Post, Sixth Pay Commission, TCS, Department of IT, etc.

She has administrative experience in working in various key positions at IIMA. From 1997-2007, she was head of the Centre for Telecom Policy Studies. She was Chair of the Post Graduate Programme from 2010-2012, Chair of the Doctoral Program (2006-2008) and Placements (2002-2005). She worked in State Bank of India for a year during 1976-1977. She has a Ph. D. from the Indian Institute of Technology, Department of Computer Science & Engineering, New Delhi (1985), M. Phil (1977-79): Department of Computer Science, JNU, New Delhi, M. Sc. (1976), Physics: Delhi University. She was awarded senior Fulbright Fellowship on Telecom Regulation in 1997-98.

In video:IIMA Director Shri Ashish Nanda briefs media