Dean Q&A: INSEAD's New Leader

Dipak Jain, INSEAD's dean-to-be, explains why he chose the European B-school as his next destination and his lofty plans for the MBA market

Dipak Jain had just finished an eight-year stint as dean of Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management (Kellogg Full-Time MBA Profile) when he got a phone call from a member of INSEAD's (INSEAD Full-Time MBA Profile) dean search committee informing him he was on their short list of candidates.At the time, Jain was on a one-year sabbatical and not in the market for a deanship, but in April he agreed to fly to Europe to learn more about the job.Ash clouds from Iceland's Eyjafjallajökull volcano prevented him from making the trip over the Atlantic, but the committee pressed him to reschedule the interview for later that spring.Once Jain finally arrived in Paris, the search committee described to him the global vision and mission of INSEAD, which has campuses in France, Singapore, and the Middle East, and an MBA class that hails from more than 80 countries.The pitch intrigued him enough to postpone his plans for a quiet life as an academic in order to accept the dean's position at INSEAD, Bloomberg Businessweek's No.1 ranked international school.

Jain will officially become dean of INSEAD in March, taking over for J. Frank Brown, who is stepping down from the position he has held since 2006. Currently Jain is a professor of enterpreneurial studies and marketing at Kellogg. He was formally introduced to the INSEAD community at the 10th anniversary celebration of the school's Singapore campus on Nov. 12, where he led a discussion on the future of management education in Asia. It's an area that Jain is deeply familiar with; during his time at Kellogg, he expanded the school's ties to Asia and also worked to help launch the Indian School of Business, now one of the leading business school in India.

Bloomberg Businessweek's Alison Damast recently spoke with Jain about his new role and INSEAD's plans to expand its presence in Asia and the Middle East. Here is an edited transcript of their conversation.
It sounds like becoming dean of another business school wasn't what you had originally planned when you left the position at Kellogg last September. What was it about INSEAD that changed your mind?

A lot of people ask me why I'd want to do this again since I've already been a dean. I tell them that very few people get a chance to become dean once, and I am going to do it twice. I took the job because I liked INSEAD's emphasis on diversity, its commitment to research, and its global model in terms of how it is trying to be a business school for the world. INSEAD is the only school in the world that has shown you can create another campus in addition to your own campus with equal vitality and energy. I thought it was very different from what I had seen in the U.S., and I believe in the vision of the school, which is to be the business school for the world.

How did your eight years as the dean of Kellogg prepare you to take on this new role?

The Kellogg experience was instrumental for me even to be considered by the committee and faculty here. Kellogg and INSEAD have a lot in common, and what I have learned at Kellogg will help me in trying to deliver on INSEAD's vision. The INSEAD program is a one-year program, and Kellogg is the only business school in the U.S. among the top schools that also offers a one-year program. It was important that I had some experience running a one-year program, because you need to believe in the product. I thought the passion I had for Kellogg and what INSEAD is aspiring to be...
[full article: http://www.businessweek.com/bschools/content/nov2010/bs20101118_711675.htm