Robert F. Bruner, dean of the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business (DSB) — ranked among the world’s Top 5 B-schools by The Economist (see p.62) — was on his seventh visit to India recently (September), to connect with alumni, prospective students, business, government and academic leaders. In India, DSB boasts a vibrant alumni association comprising 300 students. A finance economist with 23 years of teaching and research experience, Bruner is globally renowned for his research on mergers and acquisitions apart from corporate finance, and has authored several books including Panic of 1907 published in 2007.
Newspeg. On his latest visit, Burner formally launched DSB’s Global MBA for Executives programme in India. The 21 month programme combines six two-week sojourns in carefully selected B-schools in China, Europe, India, Brazil and the US with which Darden has partnership agreements, with distance learning. Targeted at business profess-ionals with minimum 15 years of work experience, DSB’s Global MBA for Executives study programme permits students to work while studying. “Indian companies are growing rapidly and are faced with the challenge of sustaining their growth. By sponsoring senior managers for our new high-quality MBA programme, Indian corp-orates can combine DSB management education with global exposure. We have been very selective in admitting students and our inaugural class has only 15 students which will grow to around 40 in the near future,” says Bruner.
History. An alumnus of Yale University and Harvard Business School, Bruner began his career as a banker at the First Chicago Corporation in 1974. In 1977, he switched to teaching and after brief stints as visiting professor at INSEAD, France; IESE, Spain; and Columbia Business School, joined the faculty of the DSB in 1982. Since then, he has been actively advancing DSB (ranked among the Top 10 B-schools in the US by Forbes in 2009) towards new frontiers of entrepreneurship, globalisation and research. In 2005, he was appointed dean of DSB. “India is DSB’s largest foreign catchment area and currently, 57 Indian students are enroled in our MBA programme in the US. DSB has entered into partnerships with the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad, XLRI, Jamshedpur and IIM-Ahme-dabad. We also send about 30 students every year to India to fulfill our global business experience programme,” says Bruner.
Direct talk. “DSB’s USP is our case-study method of teaching, in which our professors engage students in active classroom discussions rather than lecturing. We greatly pride ourselves on our highly qualified faculty and for propagating a sense of community among students, faculty and alumni,” says Bruner.
Future plans. Having formally entered business management education in India, Bruner hopes to deepen DSB’s relationships with its partner B-schools. “We have high regard for Indian business schools and plan to extend our range of MBA programmes and offer our degree and short-term courses to Indian students. We are also interested in serving the management education sector by bringing our faculty to India. We foresee exponential growth in globally-connected B-schools in India,” says Bruner.
Hemalatha Raghupathi (Chennai)