Teaching About India and Learning From Germany; New Indian Professor at HHL.

[HHL gGmbH - 13.04.2015] Prof. Sushil Khanna, Ph.D., is the new Holder of the ICCR Chair of Corporate Responsibility & Governance at Germany's HHL Leipzig Graduate School of Management. He succeeds Prof. Vasanthi Srinivasan and Prof. Radha Sharma who had been holding the ICCR Chair with great engagement for the past two years. The Chair is kindly supported by the Indian Council of Cultural Relations (ICCR), an institution affiliated with the Indian Ministry of External Affairs.

Prof. Sushil Khanna, who is the Professor of Economics and Strategic Management at the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta (IIMC), has served not only on the boards of several of the biggest firms in India but also as an advisor for the Indian government. The Kolkata-born Professor is particularly focused on the restructuring processes of state-owned enterprises. In this context he just published a study on government-owned firms in India.

His second interest is focused on all new business models in the information technology or the pharmaceutical industry in India. "I am looking at companies which started in the 1990s when the information technology boom came. These enterprises are mostly controlled by students coming out of Management schools. They had not much money to start the business. The companies were based on skills only." Prof. Khanna compares the business models in India with those in China, because China, too, had no private sector until the 1990s.

As the ICCR Chair-holder, Prof. Khanna will not only do extensive research in the field of management science and cross cultural management but will also teach in HHL's MBA as well as MSc Program. Here, he presents courses such as "Trade & Firm in Global Economy”, "Corporate Strategy”, or "International Management Competencies”.

International background With Strong Ties to Germany

The new Holder of the ICCR Chair of Corporate Responsibility & Governance at HHL has broad international experience. He previously taught at renowned business schools in Denmark, Finland, and Belgium. "Now, I am very thrilled to be in economically so well-off Germany. My aim here at HHL is to teach about India and to learn about Germany", says Prof. Khanna. Nevertheless, the country is not completely new for the Indian academic. "I first came to Germany a few weeks after the wall came down. I still have pictures of my children sitting on the broken wall. As I taught at the Catholic University (KU) in Leuven (Belgium) around the time of the peaceful revolution, I saw pictures of the demonstrations in Leipzig on television. Among my friends is the former Indian Ambassador and a German who is married to an Indian lady. He is the mayor in a small town in the Western part of Germany. I have been to Germany many times but I have never had the chance to study it well.”

The Indian Professor who came to Leipzig together with his wife, goes on, "We very much like the city center of Leipzig. Since we arrived here, everything went like clock-work. The people on and off campus made it very easy for us to settle in.”

More information: http://www.hhl.de/corporate-responsibility

HHL Leipzig Graduate School of Management is a university-level institution and ranks amongst the leading international business schools. The goal of the oldest business school in German-speaking Europe is to educate effective, responsible and entrepreneurially-minded leaders. HHL stands out for its excellent teaching, its clear research focus, its effective knowledge transfer into practice as well as its outstanding student services. The courses of study include full and part-time Master in Management as well as MBA programs, a Doctoral program and Executive Education. In the 2014 Financial Times' Masters in Management Ranking, HHL's full-time M.Sc. Program was ranked among the top 10 in Europe, while the part-time MBA Program was ranked number 6 in the 'Career Development' category in the 2014 Executive MBA Ranking of the Financial Times. According to the Financial Times, HHL ranks first in Germany and fifth globally for its entrepreneurship focus within the M.Sc. and EMBA programs. HHL is accredited by AACSB International. http://www.hhl.de