Newsmaker - Rajat Gupta

Rajat Gupta is a man with the midas touch. The Hyderabad-based Indian School of Business (ISB), which he co-founded in 2001, has been ranked #20 in the FT-Global B-School rankings, ahead of such formidable names as Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University (#21) and Anderson School of Business, UCLA (#25). It is the first Indian B-school ever to find a place on this global list.

Gupta, an alumnus of IIT Delhi and Harvard Business School (HBS), first made news in 1994 when he became the first non-American and the first Indian to head McKinsey & Company globally. He was re-elected McKinsey’s Managing Director in 1997 and 2000. By 2002, he had expanded McKinsey’s network to 84 global locations from 58 (including India and China), increased the number of consulting staff to 7,700 from 2,900 and lifted revenues to $3.4 billion from $1.2 billion in 1993.

While setting up ISB, Gupta, who is on the advisory board of HBS and Kellogg School of Management, made use of his immense global experience and clout to create a world-class institution. He ensured worldclass curriculum and academic resources for ISB by roping in London Business School, Wharton Business School and Kellogg School as partners. Gupta’s hard work is paying off now. Today, ISB’s Postgraduate Programme in Management is the eighth-largest fulltime MBA programme in the world—ramping up from 126 to 418 students in five years. It plans to ramp up further to 600 students by 2010. By then, ISB’s ranking might improve further. With Gupta at the helm, there isn’t enough reason to believe otherwise.

— Pallavi Srivastava