IIM-A director Barua gets two more months' extension

The search for a new director at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad just got couple of months longer. According to institute sources, Samir Barua's three months additional term as IIM-A director, which ends on Thursday, February 7, has been extended till the B-school's convocation in March last week.

The decision was taken after a meeting held by IIM-A Board of Governor (BoG) chairman and L&T chief AM Naik with faculty members on Wednesday. Confirming the decision, Naik told Business Standard that the BoG is hopeful to find a fresh candidate by next board meeting which is scheduled during convocation in March.

Members of the search committee, which is looking for a fresh candidate for the post of IIM-A director, are reportedly divided over names of potential candidates.

Naik had called for a meeting with faculty members to discuss whether to offer term extension to Barua or ask him to hand over the charge.

"Though ultimately the decision was taken unanimously, questions did pop up initially over the option of handing over the charge to the dean. However, the faculty members were assured that the search committee would come up with a suitable candidate to take over as the next director soon. One must remember that it is for the first time in IIM-A's history that a director has got his term extended," said a senior faculty member on condition of anonymity.

According to the faculty member, the discussions took place amicably despite some section of the institute's faculty not agreeing with Barua's extension in November itself.

Faculty members had received a mail earlier from the chairman of BoG asking their audience on Wednesday for a meeting to deliberate on the next course as far as the post of IIM-A director is concerned.

It needs to be mentioned here that some senior faculty members had some time back written to Naik saying that they wouldn't appreciate a second term for Barua or further extension of the current term and demanded the charge being handed over to either dean or senior most full faculty.

Meanwhile, the search committee, led by Naik and comprising Hasit Joshipura of GSK Pharma, Sanjay Lalbhai-CMD Arvind Group, Rama Bijapurkar and Ashank Desai of Mastek, has received over 60 applications, some of which are candidates with international experience.

However, members of the committee are learnt to be divided over external candidates with global experience versus candidates from within the campus.