Search for new IIM-A director still on

Acting director may be appointed as Barua's term ends in October

Even as Samir Barua's term as the director of Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIMA) ends in October this year, the search for a new director is still on. While the Board of Governors (BoG) at IIM-A met on Friday for a quarterly review, no discussions with the search committee over the post of director were learnt to have taken place.

Moreover, according to sources in the institute, the next meeting with the search committee for discussing some of the shortlisted names for the post of director might take place in October last week or November first week. This when Barua's term ends in October, opening up possibility of an acting director being appointed.

"The meeting was not conducted to discuss names of potential new director at IIM-A. It was only a quarterly review meeting. The next meeting happen anytime in the last week of October or first week of November," said institute sources.

Earlier, the premier B-school has so far received over 60 applications for the post of IIM-A's director at the prestigious institute.  Moreover, the BoG is also exploring options of selecting someone with international experience for the post. Speaking to Business Standard earlier, Naik said that applications from "around the world" were pouring in.

However, according to other institute sources, some of the contenders for the post of director include IIM-A's faculty members Rakesh Basant, Ajay Pandey, Arvind Sahay, TT Rammohan, Ravindra Dholakia, Srikant Datar and G Raghuram.

A 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 been formed to shortlist potential successors of incumbent director Samir Barua, whose tenure ends in November 2012. Based on the committee's recommendation, the BoG will send names to the Ministry of Human Resources Development.