IILM confers 11th Distinguished Global Thinker Award on Professor Jagdish Sheth, Charles H. Kellstadt Chair of Marketing in the Goizueta Business School at Emory University

The 11th IILM Distinguished Global Thinker Award was conferred on Prof. Jagdish Sheth, Charles H. Kellstadt Professor of Marketing at Emory University, Goizueta Business School, Atlanta, GA, US. The award was presented to Prof. Sheth by Mrs. Malvika Rai, Chairperson, IILM at the New Delhi Campus on 15^th January 2018.

Prof. Sheth also delivered a special lecture on “How the Trump Presidency will transform U.S trade policy: Implications for India.” Mr. Arun Singh, former Ambassador of India to the U.S moderated the discussions.

Known for his scholarly contributions in consumer behaviour, relationship marketing and related areas, Prof. Sheth is the foremost, leading expert on consumer psychology and marketing with over 50 years of combined experience in teaching and research at the Universities of Southern California, Illinois, Columbia, MIT and Emory amongst others. Several world leaders including former President Bill Clinton and Prime Minister Modi during his tenure as the CM of Gujarat have been advised by him. Prof. Sheth was also instrumental in setting up the first Indian Institute of Management (IIM) at Kolkata.

IILM Distinguished Global Thinker Award

Global Thinker Award was launched in 2006 which celebrates and honours distinguished individuals who have contributed substantially to the global stream of consciousness, ideas, and knowledge and have made a significant difference in the national and global community. In the past years, IILM has conferred the Global Thinker Award on various thought leaders viz Lord Bhikhu Parekh, Dr. M.S. Swaminathan, Professor C.K. Prahalad, Mr. Sam Pitroda, Lord Meghnad Desai, Dr. Shashi Tharoor, Professor Andre Beteille, Professor Soumitra Dutta, Mr. Naveen Jain and Prof. Ashish Nanda.

IILM is one of the leading business schools in India offering undergraduate, postgraduate, and executive education programmes in management and engineering. The institute has been ranked 11th by Eduniversal Rankings of 2017 as being one of the best Indian business schools.

IILM has been inducted in the leadership group of the United Nations Global Compact PRME initiative – Principles for Responsible Management Education. This leadership group works on planning and implementing the framework of responsible management and leadership education. IILM is one of the two business schools from India to be a part of this lead group of champion business schools. IILM, along with Babson College, USA, and Copenhagen Business School, Denmark, is also the co-lead for the faculty development initiative for PRME.

This year IILM celebrates 25 years of delivering high quality education in management and engineering.

Special Lecture by Prof.Jagdish Sheth

Topic: “How the Trump Presidency will transform US trade policy”

In his special lecture Prof. Jagdish Sheth drew attention to the commonality between the coming to power and administrative styles of the former American President Ronald Reagan and President Donald Trump. He brought to light the parallels in their functioning in terms of international relations and how this will be beneficial for India.

Clearly optimistic about India’s future, he laid emphasis on the need for Indian government to encourage consolidation of companies and banks as there were too many of them in India keeping them away from achieving the scale needed at a global level an exception being the public sector undertakings. He also emphasised with the changing global and political scenario today, most multilateral or Free Trade Agreements will shift to bilateral trade worldwide and Asia will be the new pivot economically.

Export oriented economies will shift to foreign investment all over the world, in lines of a trend started by the US i.e. FDI will be liberalised. He emphasized the crucial strategic role India will play in the future economically, politically and militarily in the power shift equation both for US and China, the remaining two dominant nations with his resounding words “This nation is on the rise”. India is poised to benefit also as an alternative supply chain option to China for investors looking to derisk and avoid the uncertainty that may emerge from political tensions between US and China.

Concluding on a personal note he urged the young students to count their blessings and develop a sense of giving back to the society.

Bites from the event:

Arun Singh, former Indian Ambassador to the U.S
“Relationship between India and the US has progressed positively since the election of President Trump. Focus should be on the economic relations as strategic and political relations have already progressed well.”

Prof. Jagdish Sheth, Kellstatd Professor of Marketing at Goizueta Business School, Emory University, USA
‘’India is in the right place and this nation is on the rise. Goddess Lakshmi is blessing it a third time as India had missed the boat twice in the past. Though blessed in many ways real potential of this nation is human capital which we must leverage.”

Smitha Girija,Director, IILM
“This year IILM is celebrating 25 years of excellence in delivering management and engineering courses at undergraduate and graduate levels.”