# Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad

The Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM Ahmedabad or IIM-A), is a business school, located in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India. It is one of the Indian Institutes of Management and was accorded the status of an Institute of National Importance by the Ministry of Human Resources, Government of India in 2017. It is widely regarded as the leading business school in India, and one of the most prestigious business schools in the world.
Established in 1961, the institute offers master's degree programs in management and agri-business management, a fellowship program and a number of executive training programs. The institute's founding director is Ravi J. Matthai. Other notable founding figures were Vikram Sarabhai, Kasturbhai Lalbhai and Kamla Chowdhary.

## History

IIM Ahmedabad was established on 11 December 1961 with the active support of the Government of India, the Government of Gujarat, Harvard Business School, and prominent members of Indian industry. The physicist Vikram Sarabhai and businessman Kasturbhai Lalbhai, both natives of Ahmedabad, played pivotal roles in setting up the institute. Ravi J. Matthai and several other Ahmedabad-based businessmen also played a major role in its creation. Kamla Chowdhary was the first faculty of the institute, and the coordinator of programmes between 1962 and 1965.
The institute offers master's degree programs in management and agri-business management, a fellowship program and a number of executive training programs. The institute's founding director was Ravi J. Matthai. Other notable founding figures were the Indian physicist Vikram Sarabhai, Indian businessman Kasturbhai Lalbhai and Indian educator Kamla Chowdhary.
In 2015, the JSW School of Public Policy was set up with financial contribution from JSW Steel Ltd worth Rs. 50 crore, the school is engaged in research on policy formulation and design, policy choice, and policy impact.
In 2024 it was ranked first among the business schools in India by the National Institutional Ranking Framework.

## CIIE.CO

Centre for Innovation, Incubation & Entrepreneurship (CIIE) is a subsidiary of the school. It was originally set up in 2012 as a research institution, with a grant pool from Government of Gujarat, the Department of Science and Technology (DST) and IIMA.

## Rankings

In India, IIM Ahmedabad was ranked first among management schools in India by the National Institutional Ranking Framework in 2024 for the fifth consecutive year with an overall score of 83.32.
QS ranked its One Year MBA programme (PGPX) at rank 44 in the world and rank 8 in Asia in its Global MBA Rankings 2023. QS also ranked its Two Year MBA programme (PGP) at rank 42 in its World University Rankings - Masters In Management 2024.
The Financial Times has ranked the One Year MBA programme (PGPX) of IIM Ahmedabad at rank 41 in its Global MBA Ranking 2024, while also ranking it number one globally in the career progression category for the last three consecutive years.
The Two Year MBA programme (PGP) of IIM Ahmedabad was ranked by Financial Times at rank 43 in its global Masters in Management Ranking 2023, with Career Progress rank 19 and Alumni Network rank 11.
Outlook India's "Top Public MBA Institutions In India" survey. It was ranked second by Business Today's "India's Top Five B-Schools Yearly Ranking In 2022". It was ranked 51 by The Economist in its 2021 Full-time B-school ranking.

## People
### Notable alumni

One of the most legendary alumni fora from IIMA is the famous Live Poet's Society. Among BSE 500 CEOs with MBA, the highest proportion come from IIM Ahmedabad. IIM-A alumni have garnered 9 Padma Awards – 4 Padma Bhushan awards (K. V. Kamath, CK Prahalad, Mallika Sarabhai and M. S. Banga) and 5 Padma Shri awards (Kiran Karnik, Kailasam Raghavendra Rao, S. P. Kothari, Sanjeev Bikhchandani, and Srikant Datar). Other notable alumni are Acharya Prashant, Raghuram Rajan, Arvind Subramanian, Harsha Bhogle, Ajay Banga, Rashmi Bansal, Chetan Bhagat, Ivan Menezes, Deep Kalra, Shikha Sharma, and Gopi Rathod.

### Notable faculty

Past and present faculty at IIM Ahmedabad include three former Governors of the Reserve Bank of India – C. Rangarajan (1968–1982), former Director I. G. Patel (1996–2001), and Y. Venugopal Reddy (current Professor of Practice). Other notable faculty over the years have been:
* C. K. Prahalad, famous management thinker, exponent of Core competency and Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid
* Ravi J. Matthai, first full-time Director, management educationist noted for establishing Institute of Rural Management Anand
* Bakul Harshadrai Dholakia, Padma Shri awardee, Director (2002–2007)
* Samuel Paul, Padma Shri awardee, IIMA's second director (1972–78)
* Ravindra Dholakia, member, Monetary Policy Committee (India), 2016-20
* Jayanth R Varma, member, Monetary Policy Committee (India), 2020-2024
* Vijay Govindarajan, a New York Times & Wall Street Journal best-selling author, Thinkers50 Hall of Fame 2019 & Coxe Distinguished Professor, Tuck School of Business
* Anil Kumar Gupta was a professor who was awarded Padma Shri for his contributions to management education.
* Pankaj Chandra, former director, Indian Institute of Management Bangalore and current Vice Chancellor, Ahmedabad University
* G. Raghuram, director, Indian Institute of Management Bangalore
* Dheeraj Sharma, director, Indian Institute of Management Rohtak
* Shekhar Chaudhuri, former director, Indian Institute of Management Calcutta
* Abhishek Mishra was a faculty member for six years, before leaving to become a member of Samajwadi Party and an elected MLA of Uttar Pradesh.
* Jahar Saha, Institute Director 1998–2002
* Rajnish Rai
* Tarun Jain, Mahalanobis Memorial Medalist, 2020
Other notable faculty include prominent scholars such as Marti G. Subrahmanyam, Ashish Nanda, and T. V. Rao, among others.

### Others

N. R. Narayana Murthy, an Indian tech industrialist and the co-founder of Infosys, got his first job as chief systems programmer at IIM Ahmedabad.

## Endowment

The IIM Ahmedabad Endowment Fund is India's first endowment fund set up at a management school. The fund was established at IIM Ahmedabad in June 2020 from an initial corpus of ₹100 Crore provided by 10 founding alumni. The endowment aims to grow the fund to ₹1,000 Crore over the next five years. The fund was launched by the Chairperson of IIM Ahmedabad Board of Governors, Kumar Mangalam Birla.

## In popular culture

2 States (2014 film) a Bollywood film based on the eponymous novel by Chetan Bhagat, starring Alia Bhatt and Arjun Kapoor, was shot at the IIM-A campus. Prior to this, the 1974 Bollywood movie, Parinay had some scenes shot at the Heritage campus. The movie starred Shabana Azmi and Romesh Sharma in lead roles.