Jaishankar Ganesh, Noted Business Education Innovator, Named Dean of the Rutgers School of Business–Camden

CAMDEN  –  The appointment of Jaishankar Ganesh, a noted business education innovator and a scholar in the area of international marketing, as dean of the Rutgers School of Business–Camden has been announced by Richard L. McCormick, president of Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey.

When the appointment becomes effective Aug. 1, Ganesh will become Rutgers’ first full and permanent dean of Asian Indian descent. He will serve as the fourth dean of the Rutgers–Camden business school.

As dean, Ganesh will develop

The Rutgers School of Business–Camden also delivers a portfolio of programs that promote business growth across a wide spectrum.  The Rutgers–Camden Small Business Development Center help new and potential entrepreneurs in Burlington, Camden, Gloucester, and Salem counties, while the Rutgers Institute for Management and Executive Development provides customized training programs for organizations of every size, as well as a comprehensive set of online certificate programs for individuals.

Ganesh, 45, currently serves as associate dean for administration and executive education at the University of Central Florida’s College of Business Administration.  In this position, he worked to revamp the Executive Development Center’s programs, resulting in increased enrollment and a surge in revenue from $300,000 to more than $3.5 million during a five-year period.  He played a key role in the school’s successful AACSB reaccreditation process; designed and developed a joint MS/MBA with the biotechnology department; and established an Office of Corporate Partnership and Career Management to help graduate students secure placement opportunities.

His scholarship focuses on issues of marketing management and international marketing strategy, emphasizing such issues as customer satisfaction, retail patronage behavior, and the cross-national diffusion of products. His research regularly appears in such leading journals as the Journal of Retailing, the Journal of Marketing, the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, the Journal of Product Innovation Management, and the Journal of International Marketing.  He is a regular reviewer for a number of scholarly journals.

Ganesh has taught undergraduate, MBA, EMBA, and PhD classes at UCF and the University of Houston. He is the recipient of several teaching awards, including the UCF College of Business Faculty Excellence Award for Graduate Teaching and the UCF—Teaching Incentive Performance Award.  He has served in a variety of faculty and administrative capacities at UCF since 1996.

“Dr. Ganesh is an exceptional administrator and scholar, and an energetic visionary. I am confident that he will help to advance the Rutgers School of Business–Camden to its rightful place as a premier center for education and business development in our region and state,” says McCormick.  “His focus on developing new models for business education that address the career demands of the coming decades will help to lead Rutgers to the next level of prominence in undergraduate and graduate business education.”

“At Rutgers–Camden, we believe that effective professional education must provide students with both a solid scholarly foundation and the practical skills to implement that knowledge,” says Wendell Pritchett, chancellor of the Rutgers–Camden Campus.  “Jai Ganesh has an extraordinary record of success in developing the type of programs that will expand opportunities for our students, and opportunities for Rutgers to serve New Jersey’s business and economic growth.”

“Rutgers-Camden is a best-kept secret in the region – exceptional faculty, bright, high caliber students; a dedicated and committed staff; and a very engaged alumni and business community.  Together with the Rutgers brand and a forward-thinking university leadership, it has the makings of becoming a regional powerhouse.  My job as the dean is to promote the extraordinary resources of the Rutgers School of Business–Camden to the region and the nation,” says Ganesh. 

He earned his Ph.D. in marketing and international business from the University of Houston, where he also earned his MBA. He received a bachelor’s degree in instrument technology from the Madras Institute of Technology at Anna University, and a bachelor’s degree in physics from the Loyola Autonomous College of at the University of Madras, both in India.  He previously served as an engineer at HCL–India.

Ganesh will relocate to the Delaware Valley with his wife, Anu Vedam, an IT project manager, and their daughter, Sandhya, who currently is in the seventh grade.

He is active with such community organizations as the Small Business Executive Advisory Board, Junior Achievement of Central Florida, and the Greater Orlando Heart Walk.

-30-