Sanjay Sharma knows upheaval.
He quit his career as a multinational manager in 1990 after his peace of mind was shattered by a bloody African military coup.
Now settled into the more tranquil life of a business academic, the 52-year-old is three months into his new role as dean of the John Molson School of Business at Montreal's Concordia University.
As a university, Concordia has a reputation for political ferment and it recently parted company with its president, Claude Lajeunesse, a move reportedly triggered by differences over leadership style. The India-born Dr. Sharma, recently arrived from a research chair at Wilfrid Laurier University, talks about his challenges and opportunities.
What is the niche of the Molson School?
First and foremost, the education is practical. It creates the foundation for students to become entrepreneurs, to achieve success in business. Some of our recent alumni are already running successful companies.
There is a strong emphasis on practical knowledge, on the application of knowledge, and on the student experience.
The university also has a reputation for political and ethnic upheaval. Do you have to work on this image?
I haven't had the feeling that this is how we are perceived. Sometimes these issues seem very big from afar, when you are in another province. I don't get the feeling that in Montreal they're seeing these as such major issues.
You talk to the business community and nobody says you have an image problem. These are small incidents; maybe they look a little bigger in the media. Certainly, business school students are very focused on their education, jobs, careers. They're not political at all.
Is this a turnaround situation at the Molson school?
No, it's a continuation. I spent a lot of time meeting all the constituents and stakeholders and what I realized is that we have all the ingredients of a great business school. We've got great faculty, some of whom are world-renowned. We have amazing students. In the Molson [MBA International] Case Competition, we're getting 42 teams this year from all over the world — but what is unsung is our own undergraduate students' successes in case competitions.
What do you want to change?
We have focused on the Montreal market, and here we are the place to go to for a business education, in English. But we don't cast a large enough shadow nationally or internationally.
The metaphor I use is, if you look at a small company like Goldman Sachs, it casts a very big shadow. That's what we would like to do.
How do you do that?
We have to make sure we have programs where we can retain the [financial] resources, because Quebec has tuition caps. So generating revenues through private programs is a priority.
We already have the Goodman Institute [an MBA program for investment management] and the Kenneth Woods Portfolio Management Program [for undergraduates]. They are doing well and funded by two strong supporters of the school. We are thinking about other programs … like that.
Can you expand geographically?
If you use the business metaphor of brand extension, these are programs we can do nationally. The Toronto market is heavily saturated but I think there is always potential. The Goodman program is already in Toronto but we have a limited number of students. We are exploring how to build that program. We have 23 per cent international students, which is very large. We have had discussions with the Shanghai University of Finance & Economics, and what we want is for students to do the first year of the [Goodman] program in Shanghai, and then get them here for the other two years. Shanghai is going to be the financial capital of China, and many SUFE graduates join the top 100 companies in the Pacific Rim.
What will a new building, scheduled to open in 2009, mean for you?
These facilities are a little old, they are dated. This was not built as a business school building, and people feel kind of isolated. The new building will have meeting spaces and communal areas where people can interact.
How does it feel to be hired by a university president and then find he's leaving?
We have a direction as a university that we have established. As deans, we work closely together and we have an understanding of where the university is going. I don't think we feel we have a lack of leadership here.
Yes, a president would be nice. A president would come in and establish a vision for the university. But right now we are focused on delivering a high-quality education, building a research profile and delivering a strong student experience. There might be some changes in the vision when a new president comes, but we don't have the feeling that we are adrift.
Why did you make the switch from business to academe?
Sixteen years ago, I was on the multinational track with a British company in Nigeria and our daughter was born during a military coup in Lagos. My wife [Pramodita Sharma] and I were stuck in the hospital while they were rounding up people and shooting them in the streets. It was an adventure for us. But once our daughter was born, we said this is not the life we want to give her.
Surely you didn't have to leave corporate life?
We could have moved back to London. But sometimes you can't choose what position you move into. You just move into a head office and you build a career from there.
And I was tired of being on that treadmill, and I was travelling a lot. I liked to say then, in academia I could sit in a rocking chair by a fire and read interesting books. But actually I ended up travelling again all the time. I really enjoy the life, because it meant renewal for me.
But is leaving a business career, with a new child, a big risk?
Our family members thought we were crazy. We thought we were a bit crazy, too. We moved to Calgary and my wife joined the PhD program, too. [Ms. Sharma is also a business scholar.] Initially, I thought if I didn't get into academia, I might get into consulting. Then I got to love the intellectual stimulation of research so much, I kept on going until I got the Canada Research Chair [at Wilfrid Laurier].
Then I thought I would like to do something different. I'm the kind of person who craves change, so here I am.
