KOLKATA: Uttam Kumar Sarkar was on Wednesday named the new director of IIM-Calcutta. The appointment will come into force with immediate effect, the Indian Institute of Management-Calcutta said in a statement.
Sarkar was selected from a large number of highly accomplished and qualified aspirants from India and abroad, through a very rigorous search process that lasted several months, it said.
"Professor Sarkar knows IIM-Calcutta intimately: its history, culture and the aspirations of its large body of faculty, students, alumni, staff, board, and all stakeholders. Moreover, he is acutely aware of 'what needs to be done and how it must be done' to help IIM-Calcutta achieve its global aspirations," said Shrikrishna Kulkarni, the chairperson of the Board of Governors of IIM-Calcutta.
Sarkar, a professor at the Management Information Systems Group at the premier B-School, obtained his BTech, MTech, and PhD degrees in Computer Science and Engineering from IIT-Kharagpur. He has an outstanding academic record, and is a leading researcher in the field of information systems with numerous publications in prestigious international journals to his credit, the statement said.
In the last week of March, the first woman director of IIM-Calcutta, Anju Seth, stepped down a year before the end of her tenure. "I am disappointed as I am leaving a dream only partially fulfilled; it is not what I had sought," she had told PTI then.