Students clearly adore him. His classes are a matter of discussion on their blogs. Under his guidance, Management Development Institute (MDI), Gurgaon, has become one of the largest providers for executive education amongst all business schools in India and one of the best globally networked business schools in India. Professor of Marketing at MDI since 2000, Prof Mukul P Gupta was chosen to helm the institute as Director in 2012, and has since brought forth several developments to the brand that MDI now is.
Mukul has held various administrative positions at MDI, heading every academic activity at some point in time. In 2012, he was inducted on the panel of international assessors for global AMBA (Association of MBAs) accreditation. In a career spanning three decades, Prof Gupta has spent around 10 years in the industry. He has earned himself a BSc, MBA and PhD in his subject from Rajasthan University, in 1979, 1981 and 1999 respectively.
His humble beginnings in the field started with selling of industrial goods in the early part of his business career. His corporate experience includes manufacturing and marketing of pharmaceutical products, advertising and consulting. He became the CEO of a corporation at the age of 30 and then decided to move to academics after five years in that position.
Prior to his stint at MDI, he had taught at International Management Institute, New Delhi, University of Rajasthan and Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. He was Director of Wits Business School, Johannesburg, in 2005-06. Thereafter, for six years (2006-12), he was a visiting professor as well as a member of the International Advisory Board of Wits. He was also a visiting professor at the University of the Free State, Bloemfontein (2009-12) in South Africa. He has also taught at Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration, Austria.
MDI has had several accomplishments and some of these are stories of his success. The foremost of these is increasing international engagements and expanding the MDI footprint globally. “We have entered into seven new partnership agreements with institutions abroad such as University of Maribor in Slovenia, Nepal Administrative Staff College, Kathmandu University School of Management in Nepal, Royal Institute of Management in Bhutan, Groupe ISCAE in Morocco, Cyprus International Institute of Management in Greece and Universidade Catolica Portuguesa in Portugal, in the last one year,” says Prof Gupta.
“I am glad to say that MDI loves to be imitated. It makes me believe that we must be doing something different which makes others follow us. I have seen the top B-schools in India trying to emulate our executive education programmes, twinning graduate programmes and our initiatives like the International Summer University,” gushes Prof Gupta. The Summer University enables students to avail management courses offered at MDI under MDI-ISU, for which they have partnered with the management departments of Central and State universities of India. The first edition of this Summer University was held last year and it brought 40 top ranking students from Indian institutions from Kottayam to Kashmir and many international students for a joint learning for seven weeks from the seven best international professors teaching courses of global relevance.
His take on research, “To be candid, I feel that there was a time when research gave impetus to the growth of management education, but with the passage of time, the industry has become skeptical about relevance of research at B-schools. The debate now centres as rigour versus relevance of research and the business schools have to address this debate. Research is important for creation of new knowledge and cannot be dispensed with or ignored. Users of research need to believe in it nonetheless. The challenge that the business schools face is therefore to continue being rigorous in the process of research but being relevant in dissemination of the same.”
While he believes that India has made strides in terms of enrollment in higher education, he also thinks that a lot remains to be done as “our numbers lag far behind countries like the US, Germany and China. India is the only BRIC nation that has not had any of its universities listed in the global top 100 ranks of Times Higher Education for 2013 and 2014. This is a matter of challenge for India. Likewise, more Indian business schools need to earn global recognition.”
Apart from serving on several advisory committees including Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, Ministry of Science and Technology, Government of India and many business schools abroad, he stands as a role model for his students with international consulting experience. His philosophy echoes through his methodology — he tells his students that the scope of education is not limited to passing or getting good grades, but to develop holistically, which explains why he engages with them on many levels. In spite of his busy schedule, he continues to teach marketing to the students, write, read and guide them.
— preethi@newindianexpress.com