Harvard Business School Dean Nitin Nohria Looks Back & Ahead With One Regret

Harvard Business School Dean NItin Nohria

‘PEOPLE ARE ASKING US TO REIMAGINE CAPITALISM’

With those answers in hand, he set five priorities called the five I’s for Innovation in educational programs, the Intellectual ambition to pursue important problems in business and society, the continued Internationalization of the school, inclusion and integration with the university.

“I feel pretty good about the progress that we’ve made on every one of these priorities,” he added. “The work is never done, so you just do have to do your part to continue to advance the work knowing that it will not be finished ever. I hope that we’ve made progress, but there’s always more work to do.”

He noted that the school had begun to introduce more modern data science, artificial intelligence and machine learning into its curriculum in the last couple of years. “That work needs to be accelerated,” he believes. “And people are asking us to reimagine capitalism and make sure that business is seen as a productive and positive force in society, to increase trust in business. That work needs to continue, as well.”

One benefit of the pandemic, he noted, was the faculty’s embrace of technology to deliver its courses, a shift that will finally make the long-discussed notion of lifetime learning more likely. “We certainly have learned how to deliver all aspects of our mission, including our educational mission, using technology. Every one of our faculty, by the end of this year, is now capable of teaching online. We have developed technology infrastructure of various kinds. For many years, we have had the idea that an MBA education should not just be a two-year experience, but an opportunity to create lifelong education. I think we may be prepared for lifelong education in a way that we never were before. Because now our students will have learned how to interact with us digitally.

AFTER A YEAR-LONG SABBATICAL, NOHRIA SEEMS OPEN TO LEAVING HARVARD

“They used to think that the only way to stay engaged in lifelong education with the School was to come back for reunions or for one-week programs in the School. And that’s a very costly thing to do when you’ve begun your life and you’ve started your career or you have children and you start a family. Maybe this online engagement that we’ve created will make, for the first time, the opportunity for lifelong education a reality. We never thought that our executive education programs could be delivered virtually, and we’ve learned how to do that. So there’s flexibility and a lot of opportunity that has been created in terms of our educational mission.”

Asked if he planned to return to the school after his sabbatical, Nohria left open the possibility to going after a job outside Harvard. Nohria was disappointed when the university passed over him in choosing a new president in 2018. At the time, Harvard selected a successor who was 14 years older than Nohria, the then 68-year-old Lawrence Bacow who had been president of Tufts University for ten years from 2001 to 2011 and had been serving as the leader-in-residence at Harvard Kennedy School of Government’s Center for Public Leadership.

“I haven’t made any decisions about what lies at the end of the year,” says Norhia who is 58 years old now. “I used to always say that being a professor at Harvard Business School was the best job in the world, before I got the opportunity to be dean. So returning to the faculty is certainly something that I will consider, and if that turns out to be what I do, I’d be very happy. But you only get these opportunities once in a lifetime to look and ask, “Is there anything else that I might do?” I spent 32 years at Harvard Business School. And if something else seems exciting, I think this is the moment to explore that. So I’m going to give that some thought too, but I haven’t made up my mind.

‘HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL HAS NOT JUST BEEN A PLACE OF WORK FOR ME’

“You know, I was 26 years old when I joined Harvard Business School. And so, in many ways, my entire adult life has been shaped by this school. When I joined, I was just hoping that I would make it through my first set of classes. This school has given me more opportunities to thrive and to grow and to develop and shape my life than I could have ever imagined. It’s been a place of work; it’s the place where I formed my friendships; it’s the place where I essentially developed a professional identity. And then, to become dean of Harvard Business School, it’s been an amazing privilege. And yet, I feel that the gratitude that I owe to the School remains in the School’s favor forever.”

Nohria also reflected on his personal investment in HBS over those many years. “Harvard Business School has not just been a place of work for me,” he said. “It’s been my home, because I live on the Harvard Business School campus. I think I’ll just miss the sense of, in every way, being a part of this place. It’s not just been my life; it has been the life of my wife, Monica, and our family. This is where we’ve lived for the last 10 years. So there’s a little bit of a sense of loss. We’re celebrating our last set of holidays in the Dean’s House. Over 10 years, you form extraordinarily close relationships with people. Yesterday, we had a retirement event. These are people who, in many cases, started at the school about the same time as me. I’ve been at this School 32 years, so many of these are people who I grew up with. You just realize the number of people I know and the number of people I’ve gotten to know even more closely in my time as dean. I’ll miss them. On the other hand, I was ready to leave in July, and I’m excited to begin this new phase of my life in January.”

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