Living a long distance from wife and son was a challenge even as it was an enjoyable experience professionally, said Ashish Nanda , whose sudden resignation as director of Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad last month sparked speculation that he may have been unhappy with the board support and progress he sought at the premier institute. In an interview to Kala Vijayraghavan , the former Robert Braucher Professor of Practice at Harvard Law School and the first IIMA director to be hired from an overseas institute, said he was satisfied with the initiatives he launched at IIMA. Edited excerpts: 

1. Is it true that you have quit owing to issues about lack of board and faculty support on the changes you had initiated at IIMA? 

Not at all. I have been mulling on transition for a while. Two reasons led me to decide on timing. One, given the shared sense of direction and momentum at the Institute, this is as good a time as any for leadership transition. Two, although professionally I have enjoyed the experience immensely and learned a lot, personally, living a long distance from my wife and son has been a challenge. 

When I joined, I had committed to serving at most one term. On September 1, it will be four years, to the day, since I took charge. This felt like a good time for transition. 

Of course, my heart is always with IIMA. I am always available to help the Institute in any way that I can. And I will contribute to effect a smooth transition. 

2. What are your comments on your tenure at IIMA since taking charge in 2013...what are the major changes you made as director? What were the biggest challenges you faced? 

I feel happy and at peace about what we have achieved. Of course, much remains to be accomplished, but we are on a good trajectory. 

The Institute’s strategic priorities during the past four years have been: Connect, Nurture, and Grow. 

We tried to proactively connect with five constituencies: research, practice, policy, alumni, and community. In each of these dimensions, let me identify areas where I think we have progressed significantly, and areas where we still have a way to go. 

To connect better with research community, we significantly enhanced research funding and support to ensure our faculty could collaborate with the best academic worldwide and participate in the best conferences worldwide. We plan to focus intensively on Faculty Recruitment processes to ensure we recruit the best and brightest faculty from all over the world. 

To connect better with the world of practice, we have focused on executive education. We learn from the participants about their challenges and approaches even as we teach them about management practices. Each of the past three years, our executive education activities have grown rapidly and we intend to continue to grow it in coming years. We have built capacity for editorial and research support for case-writing, as also distribution channels for cases; we plan to increase substantially the number of cases produced annually. 

To connect better with the world of policy, we are establishing the JSW School of Public Policy at IIMA. We have the funding to set up the school, a design for the school building, and a faculty committee to steer the school in its early years. Within three years, we intend to offer a long duration program at the school, as also offer multiple executive education programs, research and policy papers, and public policy oriented conferences, under the the aegis of the School. 

To connect better with alumni, we have ensured that I and the Dean (Alumni and External Relations) visit with at least ten local chapters every year and meet with our alumni. We have also increased the number of reunions held on campus from two per year to eight per year. We are establishing a Global Alumni Council. 

To connect better with the local community, we have taken initiatives to work with children belonging to weaker socioeconomic backgrounds through our student-led Prayaas and SMILE initiatives. We are building links with other academic institutions in Ahmedabad/ Gandhinagar area through the A-league initiative.

To nurture a high performance work environment, we have tried to strengthen the three legs of the tripod: autonomy, stretch, and community. 

The Institute takes pride in the autonomy it gives to its faculty and students to carve their paths and do work that is most meaningful to them. It has sought similar autonomy from the government in operating its programs. When the IIM Bill took a deleterious turn towards centralized decision-making, IIMA took a principled stand against it, for curbing autonomy would be a sure path to mediocrity. The current draft of the Bill, placed in Parliament, acknowledges the pivotal importance of autonomy to ensure excellence in academia. 

The other side of the coin, if institutions and individuals have autonomy, is to ensure accountability. We have tried to build a culture of stretch so that the Institute and our constituent members do our very best to achieve results of which we can be proud. We have implemented a Faculty Confirmation and Promotion guideline as well as a Faculty Performance Credit System to ensure our faculty maintain and surpass the standards of excellence befitting IIMA.Institutionally, too, we are developing goals and guidelines to ensure we achieve and surpass our ambitions. 

IIMA’s DNA has elements of teaming and collaboration. Institutional excellence has long thrived in an atmosphere of faculty and students working together to address complex problems in teams. Through institutional mechanisms and cultural interventions, we are trying to preserve and strengthen this sense of community. 

To achieve its rightful place among the world’s elite management institutions, IIMA must grow strategically, while ensuring quality. 

Programmatically, we plan to grow in PGP, PGPx, Executive Education, and Doctoral Programs, while initiating ePGP and Long Duration Public Policy programs. 

Our PGP program is sub-scale, compared to most other top MBA programs globally. Once physical capacity is available, we plan to grow our PGP program. Even as we grow it, we intend to have a diverse group of students enter the program. Inductive discussion based learning, such as at IIMA, flourishes best if our class has participants with diverse life experiences. We have done well in recruiting students from all parts of India and from a broad range of socioeconomic backgrounds. We have worked hard over the past three years to increase the diversity of our student body in terms of gender and discipline background, without establishing any quotas or bonus marks for belonging to a particular group. Changes in the CAT exam and the interview process have led, over these years, to an increase in the proportion of non-engineers and women in our entering class. This year, for example, of offers we have made for PGP, 27% are to women, and 32% are to non-engineers. The percentage of women is the second-highest ever and the percentage of non-engineers has not been this high for almost two decades. Additionally, we are offering deferred admissions to candidates who are selected but don’t have work experience. Twenty-six candidates who had opted for deferment are joining this year; and we have offered deferment to 14 applicants this year. To encourage international students to join against our supernumerary quota, we have continued international outreach, with five offers made this year, compared to two last year. 

Our one year program for experienced executives, PGPx has established a strong presence over the past eleven years. Alumni of the program have distinguished themselves and there is an appreciation of the program in industry. Beginning this year, we are growing the PGPx class from one section to two. 

Our Executive Education programs have grown in a robust manner over the past three years. By focusing on open enrollment and custom programs, and on delivery in classroom as well as through blended learning, we intend to continue growing Executive Education in coming years. 

We would like to grow our Doctoral Program as well. However, doctoral programs require significant investment and we will seek external support to grow the program in coming years. 

We hope that the School of Public Policy will develop into an institution of excellence comparable to the best public policy schools internationally. In addition to executive education programs and conferences, the School will begin offering Long Duration Programs in Public Policy within three years. 

Through ePGP, we have begun offering a blended learning program that will allow working executives to get an IIMA education and post graduate diploma. 

To achieve this growth, we must aggressively recruit world class faculty. We have established Faculty Chairs to attract high quality faculty to the Institite. Additionally, we intend to push for faculty recruitment across various levels through a focused and targeted initiative. 

As programs grow, we need to grow our infrastructure. Thus, a major part of of our growth strategy is maintaining and growing our physical infrastructure. 

The Louis Kahn Complex is an iconic part of IIMA. One of the great 20th century academic architectures, the Complex was in a state of disrepair and fragility. We have launched a multi-year conservation and restoration project to preserve and upgrade this beloved building complex. 

Additionally, we have launched five new infrastructure projects that should be completed over the next three years: the School of Public Policy building, a new academic classroom complex, student housing, faculty housing, and student athletic complex. 

Along with the physical infrastructure, we plan to upgrade our IT infrastructure through an overhaul of the IT hardware and establishment of an ERP system. 

We have developed a 25 year plan which suggests that our growth ambitions over these 25 years can well be met by renewing our existing campus. We have no plans for developing additional campuses. 

However, we do plan to set up Engagement Centers, in Mumbai and Delhi to start with. Each Engagement Center would have three elements: a classroom facility for Executive Education, a space for incubating start-ups, and a space to have gatherings of practitioners and alumni. We are in conversations with the Maharashtra State Government to set up an Engagement Center there. 

All these plans are possible only through the generosity of our alumni and well-wishers. Over the past three years, we have raised commitments of over INR 200 crores, more than what was raised cumulatively through donations in the fifty years prior, to fund these initiatives. 

3. Are you happy with the progress made by IIMA as a B school on a global ranking scale? 

For IIMA, or for that matter, for any Indian institution to progress significantly on rankings, we have to address three factors on which Indian schools, including IIMA, do relatively poorly: research output, gender composition, and degree of internationalization. I am satisfied with the initiatives we have launched. They address these three dimensions. Over time, they will have an impact on our rankings, which, after all, are lagging indicators. That is one reason I believe that rankings are a good metric to look at, but not a good goal to aim for. 

4. What are your plans now? Are you returning to your previous institute? 

I plan to return to Boston. Let’s focus on the transition from IIMA at present and leave the discussion on where I will go to another day. 

5. What are your comments on the new chairman Mr Birla’s role as the chairman? 

In the few months I have spent with Mr. Birla as Chairman, I have been deeply impressed by his enthusiasm and commitment to the Institute. He offers visionary guidance and tremendous support that make me feel confident about the future of the Institute.