Writing a eulogy for a profound academician and leader is not easy on one’s emotions. This column regrets the demise of Padma Shri Awardee Bala Balachandran, an educationist, Founder, and Dean Emeritus of the Great Lakes Institute of Management.

Bala (people fondly called him that) hailed from Pudupatti, near Pudukottai in Tamil Nadu.

Bala has an impressive academic track.

• IIT and USCLA alumnus
• Research Professor of Business, Jindal Global Business School
• BSc (Honors), Mathematics
• MA Statistics
• MSc Applied Statistics
• Landis Gephart’s workshop on Quality Control and Reliability Engineering
• MSE, MSc, Ph.D. (Engineering), University of Dayton
• MBA, Kellogg School of Management
• D., Operations Research, Carnegie Mellon University

The professor constituted the Information Resource Management Program (IRM) with two of his colleagues at Northwestern in 1974. He had written over a hundred research articles and books on corporate tycoons and leadership.

A glimpse at Bala’s teaching career:

• Faculty at Annamalai University
• Faculty, University of Dayton
• Faculty, Carnegie Mellon University
• Area Chair for Accounting, Information and Decision Sciences, Kellogg School of Management
• Distinguished Professor of Accounting and Information Systems and Decision Sciences, Kellogg School of Management
• Director of the Accounting Research Center at Kellogg School of Management
• Chairman, Dean Search and Faculty and Curriculum committee, ISB, Hyderabad.

The professor had established many management institutes in India and was also in the team that enlisted the first set of pedagogues at IIM-B. Bala had been part of designing the management curriculum for MDI, Gurgaon, and ISB, Hyderabad.

Bala realized his dream as the brain behind establishing the Great Lakes Institute of Management. He was instrumental in putting Chennai as a place for people seeking management studies globally.

In 2001, the Government of India conferred the prestigious ‘Padmashri’ on Bala for his contribution to higher education.

The world of education will miss a devoted educationist and an astute leader who had been instrumental in taking Management Education in India to new heights.