John Byrne: Thinking Of Rao Unnava

When I think of Rao Unnava, I keep coming back to a conversation about a trip.

He was so looking forward to the sacred pilgrimage to the Mount Kailash and Lake Manasarovar he and his wife, Vasu, were planning. My wife, Kate, and I were preparing for our own journey along Japan’s Kumano Kodo, and we had been comparing notes before leaving for our separate adventures. After years of deadlines, responsibilities, and calendars filled by other people, there was something especially appealing about setting out on foot, somewhere unfamiliar, with time to think. I would finally be retired; Rao had just stepped down as dean of UC Davis’ Graduate School of Management and would be on a sabbatical before returning to teach.

That anticipation is what I remember now, as we wait for news after the catastrophic floods in Nepal.

The flood struck on August 26, apparently as Rao and his wife were having breakfast in their hotel which was completely demolished by the flood. As I write this on September 9, Rao, Vasu, and their fellow travelers have been missing for 14 days. All 40 pilgrims and 7 members of their Nepalese field team remain unaccounted for. Two weeks without the message or phone call their families so desperately need. With each passing day, hope for good news is falling away. It is increasingly difficult to imagine a happy ending, and almost impossible to accept that there may not be one.

I came to know Rao through my work at Poets&Quants, covering business schools and the people who lead them. In that job, you meet plenty of accomplished people. You learn to look beyond the titles and the carefully prepared presentations. What interests me most is what a leader actually does for the people entrusted to his care.

Rao gave us plenty to write about.

During his decade as dean, he expanded access to business education in practical ways. He launched the University of California system’s first online MBA, opened MBA courses to alumni without charge, and helped bring a new undergraduate business major into existence. These were consequential changes, giving more people opportunities to learn and advance.

We named him Poets&Quants’ Dean of the Year in 2024 and later honored him with our inaugural Lifetime Achievement Award for Leadership. Those distinctions recognized a record of accomplishment built over many years. They also reflected the regard in which he was held by the people who worked with him.

Yet it is our conversation about travel that feels closest to me now.

Perhaps that is because I could so easily understand his excitement. Kate and I had our own hopes for our pilgrimage. Rao and Vasu had theirs. We were looking forward to experiences that would take us outside our familiar routines, to places we would remember long after we came home.

You make those plans assuming there will be time afterward. Time to exchange photographs, compare experiences, and tell the stories that never quite fit into a text message. You expect another conversation.

It is painful to think of that ordinary expectation now.

My thoughts are with Vasu as much as with Rao, and with their daughter and everyone who loves them. Behind every report about the missing are families trying to get through another hour without an answer. Those of us watching from a distance can scarcely comprehend that waiting.

I want to hold on to the anticipation I remember in Rao. I want to think of him looking ahead, eager for the journey, with so much still to experience and share.

And I keep wishing for the chance to have that next conversation.

DON’T MISS FORMER UC DAVIS DEAN RAO UNNAVA AND WIFE MISSING IN HIMALAYAN FLOODS

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