Dear Associates,
After more than 20 years of dedicated association with SP Jain, Dr. Balakrishna Grandhi (Bala) will be stepping away from his full-time role with the School, with 30 September 2026 being his last working day.
While this marks the end of his full-time role, it is not the end of his association with SP Jain. Bala will continue to be closely connected with the School as a mentor and guide, and through teaching, mentoring students and other roles in an adjunct capacity.
Over these two decades, Bala has played an important role in shaping our academic programs, our students and, in many ways, the School itself.
- Executive MBA Deanship & Turnaround (2006–2016): Rescued and transformed the EMBA program, growing enrolment from a struggling intake of 18 students in Dubai to over 550 across Dubai, Singapore, Sydney, and Mumbai, graduating 1,500+ senior executives, currently in leadership roles.
- Flagship GMBA & MGB Deanship (2018–Present): Took charge of SP Jain's full-time flagship programs, serving as Dean for the GMBA—the sole program upon which all of SP Jain's global rankings are evaluated.
- Global Rankings & Academic Standing: Led the GMBA to top-tier global recognition, securing Bloomberg Businessweek Top 10 in Asia-Pacific for three consecutive years (#7 in 2023–24, Top 10 in 2024–25, #7 in 2025–26) and #5 globally for alumni salaries in 2025.
- Harvard Business School Panellist & Colloquium Recognition: Selected and specially invited by Harvard Business School to serve on an expert panel at their 5-day Global Colloquium (2023), sharing insights on in-class pedagogical practices and global MBA innovations.
- Global Curriculum Benchmarking: Benchmarked core business curricula against Harvard Business School and leading institutions in Australia, Europe and India, and pioneered the use of experiential learning simulations from HBS, StratX (Paris), and CESIM (Helsinki).
- Pioneering the AI Suite: Contributed to the development and deployment of an industry-first, four-part AI-supported learning suite (AI Tutor, AI Mentor, AI-TKT, and AI-JPT) for continuous concept mastery, 24/7 project mentoring, and automated interview feedback.
- Placement Success & CXO Projects: Redesigned assessment through real-world CXO project-based learning and the Professional Readiness Program, improving the student interview conversion ratio by 60%.
- Consistent Teaching Excellence: Maintained teaching evaluation scores above 9.0/10 across 20 years, all programs, and campuses; recognized with the President's Best Teacher Award in 2013.
- ESG & Sustainability Research Portfolio: Authored 20+ peer-reviewed publications with a heavy emphasis on ESG, sustainability, health, and corporate governance, strengthening the school's standing with international accreditation bodies.
- Global Expansion & Board Governance: Served on the Core Leadership Team since 2006, represented SP Jain Global on the Academic Board for SP Jain London (helping secure UK New Degree Awarding Powers - NDAPS), and led multiple multi-campus launches.
- Empathy-Driven Mentorship: Established a collaborative approach to student growth, engineering personalized support systems that transformed struggling students into valedictorians and high-performing corporate leaders.
- Professor of the Year for Service (2024–’25): In view of his valuable contributions in different roles and spheres over 19+ years to the School, he was awarded this highly coveted award.
“At every stage he put the school first”
Bala, thank you for your many years of contribution, commitment and service to SP Jain. At a personal level I have worked very closely with Bala and I have seen how at every stage he put the school first. In one grad ceremony in Dubai he fell down (fault of the hotel) broke a few teeth, once in tremendous pain but completed his speech before going for treatment. That was his commitment. I wish him the very best in health and happiness.
