Chandigarh, India
India's higher education sector is at an inflection point. Fourteen international universities have received UGC approval to open campuses here, three are already operational, and the NEP 2020 framework is reshaping how every institution — domestic and foreign — must think about quality, industry integration, and internationalisation. This is the space I work in, and it is where I believe the most consequential leadership opportunities of the next decade will emerge. For the past decade I have led the University School of Business at Chandigarh University — one of India's largest private universities — first as Director, then Senior Director, and now as Executive Director. In that role I have built industry-engagement and placement programmes at scale, running structured partnerships with organisations including PwC, EY, Grant Thornton, Bajaj Auto Credit, Wadhwani Foundation, Paras Health and Bajaj Allianz, and managing accreditation relationships across UGC, NBA and NAAC. I know what it takes to make an Indian business school genuinely employability-focused — not just on paper, but in practice, measured by what our graduates earn and where they go. In 2023 I completed a Post-Doctoral Research Programme at Universiti Putra Malaysia, which deepened both my research practice and my conviction about what the internationalisation of Indian higher education actually requires on the ground. The institutions that will succeed — whether domestic or foreign branch campuses — are those that can operate fluently in both systems: meeting international standards of governance and academic quality while staying genuinely useful to Indian students, employers, and the regulatory environment they inhabit. If you are working on any of these questions — as an IBC leader, a domestic HEI, a policy body, or an international partner institution — I would be glad to connect.
Academic Administration, Associate Incharge -Placements, Corporate Connect, Teaching, Training