HYDERABAD: Just few hours ahead of its 10th graduation ceremony, the executive board of the Indian School of Business (ISB) has unanimously elected Adi Godrej as its new Chairman. The board, which met here on Saturday also accepted the resignation of Rajat K Gupta, the founding father of the premier management institute as its Chairman.
63-year-old Godrej also serves as the Chairman of the Godrej Group and is one of the richest Indian’s with a networth of more than $5.2 billion. “Gupta has put in tremendous amount of passion in developing ISB, which has now transformed into one of the best business schools globally. He has taken a preemptive step and resigned from the board following SEC charges,” he said adding, “Of course, there’s a little concern for me to takeover at a time when he resigned from the board.” said Adi Godrej, Chairman, ISB.
Addressing media soon after assuming charge, Godrej said some of the board members have proposed him to takeover as the Chairman. Out of the 30 board members, 14 directors attended the meeting held here. Stating that the business school’s brand was not affected by a series of senior managment resignations, he said, “One shouldn’t dramatise incidents. ISB has highest standards of integrity and will go to greater heights,” said Godrej, who attended 48 out of 49 ISB board meetings held so far.
Gupta announced his intention to quit from the board following the adminstrative and civil charges framed by the US Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) for his alleged complicity in the Galleon hedge fund scam. Following the SEC charges, Gupta has resigned from the boards of several companies inlcuding Procter & Gamble, Genpact, American Airlines, and city-based GVK Emergency Management & Research Institute(EMRI).
Earlier, Anil Kumar, another co-founder, ISB quit in January 2010 after pleading guilty in the Galleon scam. Later M Rammohan Rao, then dean, quit for failing to perform fiduciary duties as an independent director on the board of Satyam Computers Services now rebranded as Mahindra Satyam.
ISB’s executive board has more than 30 members, including Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group Chairman Anil Ambani, Bajaj Auto Chairman Rahul Bajaj, Bharti Enterprises Chairman Sunil Mittal, Infosys Chief Mentor N R Narayana Murthy, ICICI Bank CEO Chanda Kochhar and ArcelorMittal CEO Lakshmi Mittal.
