Ashish Nanda

Ashish Nanda is an educationalist who is Director of Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, a position he assumed in September 2013. He was hired for the post by A. M. Naik, chairman of Larsen & Toubro and of the board of the institute. Nanda graduated from Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad before working for Tata Motors. He was then recruited to Harvard Business School's economics PhD program. He is a coauthor with Tom DeLong of Professional Services: Cases & Text, published in 2003.

Nanda has studied at two of India's best known institutions. He joined the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi in 1976 for a five-year degree course in Electrical Engineering, which he successfully completed in 1981. He received the President of India Gold Medal twice. In the same academic year, he joined IIM, Ahmedabad, for a two-year post-graduate diploma in management. He received his A.M degree in Economics and Ph.D in Business Economics, both from Harvard University. Nanda worked for five years at Tata Motors, prior to his Ph.D.

Nanda taught at Harvard Business School for 13 years before moving to Harvard Law School to design and lead an executive business program for lawyers. His appointment to Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad was delayed for six months as the overseas background check took more time than expected. He was also appointed to be a member of the Executive Council of the Gujarat National Law University.

He is married to Shubha Nanda, a dentist and dental teacher. They have one son who is now attending Columbia medical school in New York, New York. Shubha played a key role in his taking up the assignment as the director of IIM, Ahmedabad, as initially Nanda was unsure of leaving his established career in the US and return to his alma mater.

Nanda received the IIT Delhi Distinguished Alumni Award in October, 2015 for his work in the field of Management Education. In February 2016, he received Acharya Shreshtha Award for Best Teacher in Management from MAEER’s MIT Group of Institutions, Pune. In March 2016, IILM conferred its 10th Distinguished Global Thinker Award on Prof. Ashish Nanda.