Soumitra Dutta named dean of Cornell's business school

IIT-Delhi alumnus Soumitra Dutta will succeed Joseph Thomas who is stepping down after a five-year stint as dean of the Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell University.

To replace Thomas, Cornell used recruiting firm Spencer Stuart and a 12-person search committee comprising alumni, students and administrators to select the new dean.

Dutta, who will become the 11th dean of the prestigious Ivy League institution, is currently a professor of business and technology and founder and faculty director of a new media and technology innovation lab at INSEAD, in Fontainebleau.

By appointing Dutta, Johnson has become the first major business school in the US to hire a dean from a business school outside the country, while Dutta has become the first dean of Indian origin of the school.

He has held several visiting professorships in Haas School at UC Berkeley, Oxford Internet Institute at University of Oxford, and Judge School at University of Cambridge in England.

Dutta has also been an advisor to governments on developing national information and innovation policies and has had stints in industry, having worked with GE in the US and Schlumberger in Japan.