Bala V. Balachandran no more

Management guru founded Great Lakes Institute

Bala V. Balachandran, management guru, educationist and founder of the Great Lakes Institute of Management, passed away in Chicago after a brief illness on Tuesday. He was 84. Fondly known as Professor Bala or Uncle Bala, he was born at Pudukottai and completed his college education at Annamalai University, Chidambaram. Then he served in the Army briefly before going to the U.S. to pursue doctoral studies.

From there began an illustrious career as professor, consultant, mentor, author, entrepreneur and life coach. He helped to recruit the first set of faculty members to the Indian Institute of Management-Bangalore in the late 1960s, established the Management Department at the Management Development Institute at Gurgaon through a joint collaboration with the United Nations Development Programme, the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

He was instrumental in designing MBA programmes at the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad. There, he had chaired the committee to select the Dean and the faculty and curriculum committees.