Prof. K. Balakrishnan (B. Sc. Kerala, A.I.C.W.A, MBA-Harvard) was a distinguished management teacher in the area of Finance and Business Policy for a quarter of a century. After graduating with a B. Sc. in Physics in 1959, he worked for seven years in various organizations in the public and private sectors: Ministry of Finance, Hindustan Steel Ltd. (Durgapur), BHEL (Bhopal), DCM (Delhi) and KCP Ltd. (Chennai). He joined IIMA on 1st August, 1966 as a Faculty Research Associate in Management Accounting and was soon deputed to the Harvard Business School for the International Teachers Programme in 1967-68.
In the very first year of his joining in 1966, he redesigned the compulsory courses on Management Accounting (MANAC), and together with Prof. John Dearden (Finance & Accounting), he also designed and launched a new elective course called Advanced Costing and Budgetary Controls (ACBC). Both these courses received the highest course ratings and won accolades over several years. By 1970, he had prepared nearly 20 odd new Indian case studies in different areas.
Prof. Balakrishnan was then sponsored by IIMA for studies at the Harvard Business School and won the Richard Bowne Prize for the best thesis proposal entitled "Indian Joint Ventures Abroad: A Case of Foreign Investment from Developing Countries." After returning to IIMA, he resumed teaching and contributed significantly to a major PGP review in 1976 as a member of the Seshan Committee.
He was one of the faculties of the first handloom development programme called "Centre for Management in Agriculture, National Workshop on Training Needs of Handloom Industry" in February 10-11, 1978, and during the same time, he also became a member of the PGP Integration Committee.
On accepting an invitation from the Asian Institute of Management in Manila at the Philippines to hold the William Soeryadjaya Chair Professorship in International Business for three years, he resigned from IIMA in 1982. He launched a new course there, called "Organizational Problems in Implementing Corporate Strategies (OPICS)", which won the best course rating in the MBA programme, and he won the Best Teacher Award over many years.
He re-joined IIMA as a Professor in the Finance and Accounting area in 1985, and he designed yet another new course called Power and Politics in Strategy Implementation (PPSI), the course was redesigned to include Ethics and introduced again in 1986, as Power, Ethics, and Politics in Strategy Implementation (PEPSI).
In the same year, he joined the T. V. Rao Committee (PGP Review Committee), and MDP Committee, and two years later, he joined the Faculty Development & Evaluation Committee. His contributions to these essential groups helped in shaping the policy and improved outcomes for students and faculty alike.
In May 1990, Prof. Balakrishnan taught Business Policy as a Guest Faculty in the Top Management Programme of the Asian Institute of Management, Manila at Philippines, and also taught Management Control Systems at the International Centre for Public Enterprise at Ljubljana, Yugoslavia in June 1990.
Prof. Balakrishnan was nominated to the Board of Governors of IIMA and the National Management Forum by AIMA on February 28, 1991. These appointments gave him a platform to voice and deliberate on issues and concerns of national importance. In 1992, he received the Best Teacher Award from the AIIMS Association of Indian Management Schools.
Prof. Balakrishnan was actively involved in designing Advanced Management Programme (AMP) for the Directors and GMs of Indian Public Enterprises and further developed the Commonwealth Top Management Programme (CTMP), and for the CTMP course, where he received a rating of 5/5.
Prof. Balakrishnan authored two scholarly books and more than 20 articles/ cases. Prof. Balakrishnan has been a reputed consultant to large public and private sectors organizations like India Airlines, Hindustan Steel, The Atomic Energy Commission, The Tata Press, and The United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO). He has served as a trainer for Unilever, Johnson & Johnson, MARA Malaysian, LPPI Indonesia and other foreign countries.
He served as a Director on numerous boards such as the "Arvind Worsted Ltd.", an export-oriented company promoted by Arvind Mills Ltd., Ahmedabad, and as a member of the advisory committee of "Viswapriya Financial Services & Securities Ltd." Madras.
He retired on superannuation from the service of the Institute on November 30, 2001.
Date of Birth: November 24, 1939
