Ashoka University Establishes Havells School of Management and Leadership with Rs 250 Crore Grant

New Delhi, February 10, 2025: On its Founders’ Day, Ashoka University announced the establishment of the Havells School of Management & Leadership, supported by Havells India. This advances Ashoka University’s mission to deliver excellence in education and to nurture responsible leaders for India and the world. This new School will complement the university’s current focus on humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, and computer science. Its management and leadership programmes will be fully integrated with Ashoka’s liberal education approach.

Co-created with the synergistic ambitions of Ashoka University and Havells India, the School aims to prepare young leaders to create solutions and inspire change in response to the world’s most pressing economic and social challenges. Havells School of Management & Leadership is designed to offer a range of innovative academic programmes, fostering a generation of leaders who are committed to making a positive impact on society and contributing to India's development agenda.

The School will offer unique undergraduate programs in Applied Liberal Arts and Management, for the first time in India, with the aspiration to becoming one of the top ten undergraduate programs in the area of management globally. The School will also offer integrated postgraduate programs, in partnership with leading schools of business and management in India and abroad.

Ashoka University’s signature interdisciplinary foundation courses will remain central to the Havells School of Management and Leadership’s undergraduate experience. The School’s specially curated programs will provide students with a broad foundation in the liberal arts with its emphasis on multi-disciplinarity, critical thinking, communication and leadership, while allowing them to specialise in management, business and entrepreneurship.

This latest commitment to Ashoka University by Havells India carries forward the legacy of its founder, the late Qimat Rai Gupta, who first made a grant to the university in 2014. It expresses his son Anil Rai Gupta’s vision of co-creating one of India’s finest leadership and management programs with Ashoka. The commitment of Rs250 crore to School of Management & Leadership is Havells India’s third and largest commitment to Ashoka. The endowment will be spread over a period of time.

Anil Rai Gupta, Managing Director, Havells India, said, “We are delighted to play a role in establishing the Havells School of Management & Leadership at Ashoka University. This partnership is rooted in our shared belief in the transformative power of education, and the potential it holds in shaping future leaders. As the global business environment continues to be disrupted, we are confident that this cutting-edge leadership and management programme combined with the strong foundations of liberal arts will not only benefit students at Ashoka, but also contribute to the nation's growth, and the creation and development of industries globally.”

With Ashoka University’s commitment to interdisciplinary education and a global outlook, students at the Havells School of Management & Leadership will benefit from exposure to diverse perspectives, international best practices, and real-world case studies, setting them apart from graduates of traditional management programmes and giving them a distinct advantage in the job market. The university already offers its undergraduate students a wide range of courses in management, business, and entrepreneurship through its InfoEdge Centre for Entrepreneurship, which will now be folded into the Havells School of Management and Leadership.

Pramath Raj Sinha, Founder and Chairperson of the Board of Trustees, Ashoka University, said, “The establishment of the Havells School of Management & Leadership marks an important milestone in Ashoka University’s journey. We are building a new model of management education that combines the rigour of business thinking with the foundations of liberal arts.”

“We are constantly surrounded by change at unprecedented levels and therefore need individuals who are critical thinkers, problem solvers and innovators, and who understand the world from diverse, multiple perspectives. Building the School is an effort to address these needs. We not only want to study management more liberally, but also actively practice its applications in local, global and future flavours and contexts,” he added.

The School will distinguish itself by its academic and industry partnerships - in India and internationally - to facilitate student exchange programmes, build joint programmes, offer market-recognised certifications, build executive education programmes and enable visiting and cross-appointed faculty collaborations. New centres of excellence will also be set up by the School which will focus on encouraging entrepreneurship and innovation amongst students, enabling skills and resources to equip them to discover and start their unique, professional journeys.

The vision of the School is to create programmes that are at par with business and management programmers offered by leading global institutions, such as the Saïd Business School of Oxford University, Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, Sloan School of Management of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Marshall School of Business of the University of Southern California, and Stern School of Business of New York University.