Dr. Dipak C. Jain, Distinguished Alumni 2001
Having risen to the top post of the Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University on July 1, Dipak Jain is a true success story for The University of Texas at Dallas. Dean Jain earned an MS in Operations Research and a PhD in Marketing from UTD before joining the Kellogg faculty in 1986 as an assistant professor. He is broadly recognized as a prolific scholar as well as a respected researcher and teacher. In addition to being published in many of the country's leading academic journals, Dr. Jain serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Marketing Research.
Dr. Jain attributes the bulk of his success to UTD, and he says that without the education and mentorship offered to him, he would never have achieved the life he enjoys today.
"UTD has changed my whole life," he notes. "It was my turning point. It's played such a significant role both in my personal and professional life. It was the first place I landed from India, and the support I received from everyone was so welcoming, I felt as if I'd never left home."
In 1982, Dr. Jain was a professor in India when Dr. R. Chandrasekaran, a professor of Operations Research at UTD, sent him a letter inviting him to earn his doctorate at UTD. The following January, Dr. Jain began classes, not only earning a degree but also learning strong lessons both in leadership and friendship.
"Every day I spent in Dallas is a great memory for me," he says. "I tried to follow what I learned there every day of my life. They have made me what I am today."
That's high praise from a man who has achieved such great success, but Dr. Jain says he cannot emphasize enough the importance of such mentoring and leadership. "You can only go a long way if the foundations provided to you are great," he says. "We need the culture of UTD to provide such foundations."
-- Management Vol. 5 No. 1 Autumn 2001, by Paula Felps
