Professor Mendu Rammohan Rao is the Dean of the Indian School of Business (ISB) since July 1 2004.

An illustrious academic, renowned worldwide for his research and teaching capabilities, Dean Rao taught as a tenured Professor of Operations Research at the Stern School of Business, New York University. He has also taught at the Graduate School of Management, University of Rochester as an Associate Professor and as a visiting faculty at the University of Tennessee. He has held various positions at the IIM-B, including those of Professor, Visiting Professor, Dean and Director. At the time of his appointment as the Dean of the ISB, he was Professor Emeritus, Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore.His current teaching and research interests are in the areas of Optimization, Corporate Finance and Financial Derivatives.

As a Research Fellow, Dean Rao was associated with the International Institute of Management, Science Center, Berlin, Germany, and the International Center for Management Sciences, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics, University Catholique de Louvain, Belgium. He also conducted research at the Operations Research Group, United States Steel Corporation, Applied Research Laboratory, and Monroeville, Pennsylvania. 

Dean Rao has published over 85 articles in various professional journals. He was the Chairman of the All India Board of Management Studies constituted by the All India Council for Technical Education. He was on the Advisory Board of General Motors India Science Laboratory. He was the president of the Operational Research Society of India from January 2003 to January 2005. He is a member of the Board of Directors of Satyam Computer Services Limited and Bharat Electronics Limited.

Dean Rao is a member of the Advisory Board of Citigroup and member of the Board of Editors, OPSEARCH – a journal of the Operational Research Society of India. He serves as a member in the Executive Group of the Editorial Board at the Information Systems Frontiers – a Journal of Research and Innovation, Kluwer Academic Publishers.

Dean Rao has won several prestigious awards conferred on him by leading institutions across the world. Some of the awards are:

• The Fulkerson Prize, an award sponsored by the Mathematical Programming Society and the American Mathematical Society. This award is the triennial prize for 2000 and was conferred for his work on “Decomposition of balanced matrices”, Journal of Combinatorial Theory, Series B
  
• The  Chief Executive of the Year Award 2000-2001 conferred by the Indian Institute of Materials Management
  
  
•  The Award for Excellence as Top Management Educator in 2002 conferred by the Institute of Marketing and Management
  
• The Ravi J. Mathai National Fellowship Award in 2003 conferred by the Association of Indian Management Schools
  
  
•  The Dr Ambedkar National Award in 2004 for distinguished contribution to management education from the Ambedkar Institute of Management Studies.
  
  
• The Grid Leadership Award for Life Time Achievement in Management Education in 2004
  
  
• The First  Bharat Asmita Acharya Shrestha Award 2005 for his contribution to the field of Management  Education instituted by the MIT School of Management , Pune

Dean Rao has a PhD in Industrial Administration from the Graduate School of Industrial Administration, Carnegie-Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. He completed two Masters Degrees – Master of Science in Industrial Administration, Carnegie-Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Master of Engineering (Industrial), Cornell University, New York.