An IIT-M alumnus professor,  Ravi Kumar, 61, has been appointed the dean of the Nanyang Business School (NBS) in Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University (NTU).

Ravi Kumar comes from the University of Southern California’s Marshall Business School, where he held several key leadership positions, including that of Vice-Dean for international programmes and Vice-Dean for graduate programmes. The university in its press release on Tuesday described Kumar as ‘an academic heavyweight with a good blend of east-west experience’.

The release quoted Kumar, “NTU has an ambitious leadership that has been consistently building its brand worldwide. As one of the pillars of the university, the Nanyang Business School has a great reputation for thought leadership.”

His appointment came after a comprehensive review of international candidates by a six-member search committee, led by Insead professor Gabriel Hawawini for two years.

Previously, Kumar served as the Dean of the College of Business at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology. He introduced reforms that saw the Korean college break into the top 100 of the Financial Times global MBA rankings.

On his East-West experience, Kumar said, “Maybe it has to do with the Confucian tradition or Asian thinking; Korean students thirst for learning, work very hard to succeed in being educated and really prize education, and their professors. But they are also less likely to question their professors’ ideas or come up with alternative viewpoints. The non-Asian students in the US, however, have that native irreverence and vitality, so they are very happy to question anything and everything the professors say!”

Prof Kumar, the ardent champion of business education feels most proud when some of his former students have become successful executives of commercial and non-profit companies. “As an educator, nothing matters more than helping your students to realise their potential and know they have made it good,” he said.

A table tennis champion and player for the IIT-M in his young days, Kumar received his Bachelor of Technology degree in Mechanical Engineering from the institute in 1974. He holds a Master of Science degree in Industrial Engineering from the University of Texas, and a Doctorate of Philosophy from the Industrial Engineering and Management Sciences Department at North western University.

source: http://www.deccanchronicle.com / Deccan Chronicle / Home> News> Current Affairs / DC / June 19th, 2013