Full transcript: Dean Srilata Zaheer speaks to NDTV

Minneapolis: In an exclusive, NDTV's Sarah Jacob speaks to Srilata Zaheer, an Indian-American who has been appointed as the Dean of the Carlson School of Management in Minnesota.

NDTV: Dean Zaheer, Congratulations, this is quite an achievement, how do you feel?

Dean Zaheer: Just great! I am excited about leading this gem of a school and raising global awareness of it. The Carlson School of Management in the University of Minnesota is a really special place, it is amazingly intellectually vibrant, and we have fabulous students. We have executive MBA programmes for three continents, so it's just a really good place and I'm excited about leading it at this time.

NDTV: There is increasingly a large number of Indian American Deans at top business schools of America. In a field that is not known for being on the cutting edge of diversity, this is a notable change. Why do you think that is?

Dean Zaheer: Business education has always been internationally very diverse.  For instance in just our school we have faculty from Egypt, from Russia, from Lithuania, from China and many from India. So it's not that much of a change in the world of business education. In fact you see some of these diversities when you look at universities of higher education in the US. I just recently read that 25 per cent of the population at major universities in the US are women and compare that to less than 5 per cent of women among Fortune 500 CEO's. I think business education has always been at the forefront in encouraging diversity especially in its faculty.

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NDTV: So then how do you explain so many Indian American Deans of Business schools? Is this a sign of business programmes trying to become more global in their outlook to accommodate the reality of emerging economies?

Dean Zaheer: I would not go that far because I think in some sense we've always been internationally diverse in faculty so its wonderful that now there's a great growth in the demand for MBA's and demand for business school education worldwide and that puts US business schools in a very strong position because we already have an international faculty which will be able to reach those markets.

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NDTV: What about the student's background. Could it be that students are getting more diverse and international and this needs to be reflected in the faculty?

Dean Zaheer: It is very exciting for us that our student body is growing more international but there is a demand for a sort of US education worldwide so we need to actually deliver on our educational practices around the world. Having international faculty from those countries is helpful in making this happen, but we don't know if we are actually pro-actively searching for international deans and deans from different countries for just this reason. The primary aim is that are we finding the best talent out there to do this job.

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In fact, the internationalisation of faculty in business schools has happened much before the internationalisation of the student body. It is not really a reaction but it actually places us in a really good position to serve emerging economies, countries like China, like India. We are already doing this. We have an executive MBA programme in China and in Vienna. We were the first to offer an executive MBA programme in Central and Eastern Europe and in fact we are actively exploring the possibilities of opening an executive MBA programme in India as well.

NDTV: On Eye on America, we have been closely following the election at the World Bank. For the first time there's opposition to the US candidate with developing countries questioning the unwritten rule that the President of the World Bank is always an American. There seems to be a changing world order and this may be a stretch, but is the trend that increasingly more deans are non-Americans a reflection of that change?

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Dean Zaheer: I don't think business school deans are as geopolitically sensitive as the World Bank presidents. Having said that, I think there is clearly a desire to go after the best talent no matter what their country of national origin. And I think that's the right thing to do. Hence business schools are going on hiring non-Americans. Similarly in some American multi-nationals. Two of the top multi-nationals in our neighbourhood have recently appointed CEO's who are not from the country. 3M which is a St. Paul, Minnesota company recently appointed Inge G. Thulin as their CEO and the same goes for the Carlson companies-the firm after whom our school is named. They also have appointed Hubert Joly, a French executive as their new CEO and so this trend of looking worldwide for the good talent available is something that all businesses schools and all organisations should be doing.

NDTV: Not only have you broken into an elite group commanding position at higher education in America but until now it has been exclusively an all boys club. In fact, there has been only one other Indian born woman dean and so it's a moment of pride for women across India too. Is this another ceiling broken by you?

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Dean Zaheer: I don't actually feel that I have broken any glass ceilings because actually the reality is there have been many Indian deans not just in business schools but also in departments of research institutions across US. We even have an Indian origin woman who is the chancellor of the University of Houston, which is a leading university of the country so it's not really a glass ceiling that I have broken as the Indian press thinks.
 
NDTV: You are being very modest Dr Zaheer. Lastly, a lot of Indian students dream of studying in US. We hear a lot about India and China trips in MBA programmes. Is that the situation at Carlson too? Does your school focus on students from India? If not, will that change now that you are at the helm?

Dean Zaheer: I am glad you asked that. We have a very strong focus on India. In fact, right now as you will be showing this programme, we have our Carlson School executive MBA programme team travelling to Bangalore and Delhi. We also have an executive MBA programme in Vienna and students from there visit India and China. We have a lot of our faculty teaching at business schools in India. We have a strong relationship with Indian School of business (ISB), one of our faculty member heads up the faculty of information and technology in the new economy at ISB. We are exploring a possibility of opening an executive MBA programme. We are in advanced talks with one of India's business schools. So watch this space for more.
 
NDTV: We definitely will. Thank you for your time.