Redesigning the MBA for the AI Era: IMI CEO Dr Suresh Ramanathan on Competency Gaps, New Curriculum, ‘One IMI’ and Responsible Use of AI in MBA Education

Leading the change is Dr Suresh Ramanathan, Chief Executive Officer, IMI. He received his PhD in Marketing from the Stern School of Business at New York University in 2002, following which he spent nine years on the faculty of the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and eight years as an endowed professor at the Mays Business School at Texas A&M University, before moving to India as Dean of the Great Lakes Institute of Management, Chennai. He holds a B.Tech from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, and an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta. Dr Ramanathan also brings considerable industry experience in sales and marketing, having spent a decade at Brooke Bond (now part of Unilever) and in leading advertising agencies.

Dr Ramanathan recently spoke at the 16th Indian Management Conclave (IMC) 2026, where he cautioned that the unregulated use of AI in management education can do more harm than good. Following up from the Conclave, IMC and MBAUniverse.com Founder Dr Amit Agnihotri interviewed him on a diverse set of questions covering the reasons for the industry-academia divide, reasons for competency gaps in MBA graduates, the role of AI in management education, and the what, why and how of IMI’s new framework. Edited excerpts from the interview follow:

THE CHANGING CONTEXT OF MBA EDUCATION

Q: The world of business is changing faster than ever. Several studies have highlighted growing concerns among MBA recruiters about the preparedness of management graduates. What are the key gaps you see today?

A: The gap is not really one of knowledge. Most MBA graduates know the frameworks and can analyse a well-structured case. The difficulty begins when nobody has written the case for them. In a company, the problem arrives in a rather untidy form. The data may be incomplete, different people may describe the problem differently, and the young manager still has to decide what matters and what to do next.

I also see a weakness in commercial understanding. A student may produce an excellent market analysis and yet struggle with some very basic questions. Why will the customer buy? How will the firm make money? What will stop a competitor from copying the idea? These questions sound simple. They are not.

Recruiters are also looking for people who can communicate clearly, work with colleagues from other functions, handle disagreement, and take responsibility when things go wrong. 

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has made these qualities even more important. If a machine can summarise a report and produce a competent first draft, our students must bring judgment, curiosity, empathy, and a sense of responsibility. Their education has to prepare them for a career that will keep changing, not only for the first job they secure on campus.

Q: In your view, why is MBA education falling short of industry expectations? Why do these gaps persist despite decades of evolution in management education?

A: One reason is that business schools and companies are organised differently. We teach marketing, finance, operations, and organisational behaviour as separate disciplines. A company presents a problem that may require all of them before lunch.

Business schools also change more slowly than the world around them. Curricula go through committees, while technology and markets keep moving. Industry engagement sometimes means an occasional guest lecture or advisory-board meeting. That is useful, but it is not enough. Our assessments often reward students for finding the expected answer under controlled conditions. The workplace rewards them for exercising judgment when there may be no obviously correct answer.

There is another habit we must break. Too many institutions begin preparing students for placements a few months before recruiters arrive. By then, much of the opportunity has been lost. Career readiness has to begin in the first term and develop throughout the programme. We cannot repair a two-year learning experience with a workshop at the end.

Q: So, how should management education evolve to keep pace with this changing business paradigm?

A: I would start by asking what a graduate should be able to do. That is a more useful question than simply asking which courses the student has completed.

The foundations remain important. Students still need economics, finance, marketing, operations, strategy, data, and organisational behaviour. I would be very uncomfortable with an MBA that weakened these foundations in the name of being fashionable. But students must also learn to connect them. That is why I think of the MBA as a T-shaped education: breadth across the enterprise, real depth in one area, and the ability to work with people who know things that you do not.

This requires repeated practice with messy problems through simulations, field assignments, live projects, and industry briefs. It also requires a different kind of assessment. Can the student defend a recommendation? Build and interpret a model? Negotiate a difficult decision? Use AI without surrendering judgment? We do not know which tools will dominate five years from now. We can teach students to keep learning and to use new tools without becoming intellectually dependent on them.

IMI’S CURRICULUM TRANSFORMATION

Q: IMI has recently revamped its curriculum to make it more career-aligned and application-driven, while preparing students for real-world impact. Could you give us an overview of the key dimensions of this curriculum transformation?

A: We began with a very practical question: what would make an IMI graduate valuable from the first day at work and continue to make that graduate valuable five years later?

The common core gives every student a sound understanding of the enterprise. The major provides depth, while the minor adds a capability that can make that depth more useful. The Career-Focused Tracks bring these choices together around groups of roles that students may pursue. We are also putting much more application into the classroom through cases, simulations, labs, company problems, and live briefs. During Block Weeks, students will step out of the normal timetable and work intensively with practitioners on a particular capability or business problem.

Workplace skills, ESG, and AI run through the programme instead of being confined to a couple of standalone courses. The other major change is One IMI. Delhi, Kolkata, and Bhubaneswar will follow a shared curriculum architecture and common standards. Students should be able to draw on the faculty, alumni, industry relationships, and learning opportunities of the entire institution. Each campus will retain its own character, but the quality of the academic experience must carry one clear IMI signature.

Q: Let’s unpack this further. You say the new IMI curriculum is designed around careers. Which careers is the curriculum focused on? Are these defined primarily by sectors, roles, or a combination of both?

A: We have organised the tracks primarily around roles, with sector knowledge added to them. That choice was deliberate. People change industries during their careers, and industries themselves change. The ability to solve a particular class of problem is often more portable than detailed knowledge of one sector.

The tracks include Strategy and Consulting; Market Expansion and Growth; Finance and Capital Markets; Product Management; Operations and Supply Chain; Analytics and AI; and People and Organisations. Consider a student preparing for consulting. The student must learn to define an ambiguous problem, work with financial and market data, test a hypothesis, and communicate a recommendation. Those abilities matter whether the client happens to be a bank, a consumer company, or a hospital.

Of course, sectors cannot be ignored. A product manager in banking faces a very different regulatory and customer context from a product manager in a consumer-internet company. We will bring that context in through cases, projects, mentors, and industry modules. The role gives the student a professional direction; the sector gives the problem its texture.

Q: Tell us about the new curriculum architecture at IMI. How is it different from the conventional curriculum taught at IIMs and other leading B-schools? 

A: The traditional MBA can sometimes resemble a buffet. Students complete the core and then collect a set of electives. Some make very thoughtful choices. Others choose according to the timetable, the reputation of the professor, or, occasionally, the likelihood of a less demanding Friday afternoon!

We want the choices to add up to something. The core gives breadth, the major gives depth, and the minor brings in an adjacent capability. The Career-Focused Track then connects them to the demands of a role. A student interested in consulting, for example, should be able to see how strategy, financial analysis, analytics, a practitioner module, and a live assignment are building towards a demonstrable ability.

I do not want to suggest that no other good business school is doing any of this. Several are. Our distinction comes from how tightly the pieces are connected and how consistently they are delivered. At IMI, career relevance and application are influencing the design of the curriculum itself. They are not being attached after the academic work is over.

Q: What are the Career-Focused Tracks? How have they been conceptualised and how are they delivered? Is there a selection process for students to opt for these tracks…

A: A Career-Focused Track is a preparation pathway for a family of roles. We have studied job descriptions, spoken with recruiters and alumni, and examined what young managers are actually expected to do in their first few years. We are then working backwards from those expectations.

Depending on the track, students may take specialised courses, learn particular tools, work through simulations, receive mentoring, and complete live briefs or a capstone. The Strategy and Consulting track develops skills such as problem definition, hypothesis-led analysis, commercial and financial reasoning, synthesis, and client communication. Product Management brings together customer discovery, experimentation, metrics, technology fluency, and the ability to work across functions.

Students receive orientation and counselling before choosing. They should understand both the nature of the work and their own readiness for it. We do not want every student choosing consulting because it sounds prestigious, or product management because it is currently fashionable. Some tracks may require prerequisites or have capacity limits, but these conditions are made clear to the students. The purpose is to help students make a credible choice and prepare seriously for it.

Q: The new IMI curriculum combines majors and minors to create what you describe as a “power combo.” Could you explain the concept and share some specific examples?

A: The phrase 'power combo' is simply our way of making the logic memorable. The major tells a recruiter where the student has depth. The minor tells the recruiter what additional capability the student can bring.

A Marketing major with an Analytics and AI minor could be useful for growth, customer strategy, digital marketing, or revenue management. Finance with Analytics has obvious value in fintech, risk, valuation, and data-intensive corporate finance. Operations with Analytics can prepare students for supply-chain planning and digital operations. Human Resources combined with Analytics or Strategy can support roles in people analytics, workforce planning, and organisational transformation.

The combination must make sense. Two labels on a CV do not, by themselves, create value. The student should be able to explain: this is what I understand deeply, this is the additional lens I bring, and these are the problems I am equipped to solve.

APPLICATION-FIRST LEARNING AND WORKPLACE READINESS

Q: You describe the curriculum as being built around “Application-First Learning.” Why is this approach important, and how is it being implemented? Does this involve a greater emphasis on experiential learning?

A: A business problem rarely arrives as a question neatly printed at the end of a chapter. It may arrive as falling market share, a supply disruption, a product customers are refusing to use, or a team that cannot agree on what has gone wrong.

Application-First Learning begins with that reality. Students encounter the problem, identify what they need to learn, apply the relevant concepts and tools, receive feedback, and try again. Cases, simulations, role plays, labs, fieldwork, client briefs, and live company projects will all contribute to this process.

This approach does not reduce the importance of theory. I have spent much of my life as an academic, and I would be the last person to make that argument. Good theory helps us recognise patterns and prevents us from treating one colourful anecdote or a war story as a universal truth. But a student must be able to use the theory. One live project in the final term is not enough. Managerial judgment develops through repeated practice, reflection, and correction.

Q: The new programme also introduces “Block Weeks with Industry Experts.” What exactly are these, why are they important, and who are the experts involved? 

A: During a Block Week, the regular timetable pauses and students spend several consecutive days working on one capability or one substantial problem. Some things are difficult to learn in a ninety-minute class held once a week. A negotiation develops momentum. A consulting problem requires sustained concentration. A product-discovery exercise involves testing, failure, and another attempt.

The experts will include senior practitioners and alumni from consulting, financial services, technology, consumer businesses, operations, analytics, and people leadership. A Block Week might focus on consulting problem-solving, project management, product discovery, financial modelling, negotiation, AI-enabled managerial work, or storytelling with data. The exact roster will change because the market will change and because we want the experience to remain current.

Our faculty are actively involved in designing and overseeing these modules. We are not replacing the curriculum with a succession of guest talks. The value lies in bringing academic structure and current professional practice into the same room.

Q: Industry often complains that MBA graduates lack the skills required to succeed in the workplace. How does IMI integrate “Workplace-Ready Skills” throughout the programme? 

A: Workplace readiness cannot be produced in a finishing-school workshop three weeks before placements. It has to develop from the first term, and students need repeated opportunities to practise and receive honest feedback.
We are therefore building problem-solving, communication, data and AI fluency, teamwork, negotiation, project management, customer orientation, and ethical judgment into courses and projects. Students must also learn to deal with ambiguity, give and receive feedback, manage conflict, and take responsibility for an outcome. People sometimes call these 'soft skills'. Anyone who has tried to resolve a serious disagreement in a team knows that there is nothing particularly soft about them.

If a student cannot explain an analysis in three minutes, respond when the evidence contradicts an initial view, or work through disagreement without damaging the team, technical knowledge will carry that student only so far. We will use common rubrics and repeated feedback so that progress becomes visible. I want our graduates to leave with evidence of what they can do, not only a transcript listing what they studied.

Q: In summary, what are the key benefits of the new curriculum for IMI students? Do you expect it to translate into better placement outcomes…

A: The immediate benefit is greater clarity. Students should know why they are taking a course, what ability it is helping them build, and how that ability connects to the work they hope to do. They should also leave with work that can be shown and discussed in an interview.

I do expect this to improve placement outcomes. Better preparation should lead to stronger role fit, more confident interviews, and graduates who become productive more quickly. But I would not claim that curriculum reform can guarantee a job. The economy matters, recruiter demand matters, and student effort matters enormously. 
We will therefore look beyond the final placement percentage. Do recruiters return? Are students securing roles that match their preparation? Do internships convert into offers? What do managers say about our graduates after six months or a year? Securing the first job is important. What happens after joining tells us whether the education has really worked.

AI AND THE FUTURE OF MANAGEMENT EDUCATION

Q: Turning specifically to AI, at IMC 2026, you cautioned against unregulated use of AI in MBA education. How is IMI integrating AI into the new curriculum?

A: AI can become a convenient way to avoid learning. It can also become a very demanding learning partner. The difference lies in how we use it.

In an MBA Curriculum, AI cannot be placed in one elective, examined at the end of the term, and then declared covered. It is already changing work in marketing, finance, operations, human resources, strategy, and entrepreneurship. Students must encounter it in each of these settings.

Every student needs a basic understanding of what AI and machine learning can do, where they fail, and how generative AI produces an answer. Students should know how to frame a useful prompt or workflow and, more importantly, how to test what comes back. Those preparing for Analytics and AI-intensive roles will naturally go much deeper.
We will give equal attention to responsible use. Privacy, bias, security, intellectual property, and accountability are managerial questions, not technical footnotes. I do not expect every manager to become a data scientist. I do expect a manager to ask an intelligent question of a technical team and to recognise when a confident-looking output may be wrong. The tools will keep changing. Sound judgment must travel with the student from one generation of tools to the next.

Q: Beyond the curriculum, how is IMI leveraging AI in pedagogy and in the teaching and learning process?

A: As I said, AI can become a convenient way to avoid learning or it can be a very useful learning partner. The difference lies in how we use it.

A student can rehearse an interview, test a recommendation against a sceptical stakeholder, practise a negotiation, or receive early feedback on a business memo. In analytics and coding, AI can help a student move past a mechanical hurdle and spend more time understanding what the result means. Faculty can use it to create variations of a problem, develop exercises, and identify concepts that a class has not understood well.

We are also developing a retrieval-augmented generation, or RAG, system using the material taught by our faculty. It will draw on faculty-approved lectures, notes, readings, cases, and related course material. A student asking a question should receive an answer grounded in what has actually been taught at IMI, together with the source from which the answer was drawn. The student can then verify the answer and return to the original material. I see this as a course companion that remains available when the classroom is not. It should help students revisit a difficult concept and make connections across courses.

This will require careful protection of copyright, confidential material, access rights, and faculty intellectual property. Students will also need clear rules on disclosure and verification. The objective is to create more opportunities for thought and feedback. If it merely produces effortless answers, we will have missed the point.

Q: AI is also fundamentally disrupting traditional approaches to assessment and examinations. Is IMI moving beyond conventional end-terms?

A: Yes. We are moving towards continuous and application-based assessment, although I would not discard examinations altogether. A well-designed examination can still tell us whether a student has mastered essential concepts. The problem arises when a memory-heavy end-term paper becomes our main evidence of learning.

Students should also write decision memos, build models and dashboards, make presentations, work through simulations and live projects, and defend their reasoning orally. These forms of assessment show us how the student framed the problem, chose evidence, exercised judgment, and communicated a decision.

AI makes this change unavoidable. A polished take-home essay no longer tells us, with any confidence, what the student can do independently. Each assignment must specify whether AI is prohibited, allowed with disclosure, or an essential part of the task. Where it is used, students may have to show their process, verify sources and calculations, and defend their choices in a viva. We cannot pretend that AI can be kept outside education. We also cannot confuse a fluent machine-generated answer with evidence that a student has learnt.

One IMI and Vision

Q: IMI has also introduced the “One IMI” theme, bringing all three campuses under a unified curriculum architecture. Why was this necessary, particularly when the three institutions are at different stages of maturity and development…

A: The campuses are at different stages of development, and that is one of the strongest reasons for One IMI. Delhi has scale and deep corporate relationships. Kolkata has substantial academic capability. Bhubaneswar has room to grow and experiment. It makes little sense for these strengths to remain behind campus boundaries.

A common curriculum architecture gives us shared academic and career-preparation standards. It also makes cross-campus teaching, shared electives, digital content, and joint industry relationships easier. A good idea should not have to be independently discovered three times.

One IMI does not require the campuses to become identical. That would ignore their histories, capabilities, and regional contexts. Each campus should build areas of distinction. What must remain common is the promise we make to a student and the standard by which we judge ourselves. For me, One IMI is both a practical operating model and a belief that the institution is stronger when its campuses act as parts of one whole.

Q: Your designation as the “Chief Executive Officer” of IMI is an unusual title for an academic institution. As the CEO, what are your key focus areas and goals?

A: The title is unusual, but the mandate is quite clear. I am responsible for the performance and long-term health of IMI across Delhi, Kolkata, and Bhubaneswar. Academic leadership is central to that responsibility. So are execution, resource choices, and accountability for results.

My first priority is student outcomes. The curriculum transformation is one part of this. We are also building a more integrated career-services model and much closer relationships with recruiters and alumni. At the same time, we must raise the quality of our research, invest in faculty development, grow executive education and digital programmes, deepen international partnerships, and use data much better in our own decisions.

Academic quality and financial health have to reinforce each other. An institution needs resources to attract good people, support research, improve technology, and invest in students. My ambition is for IMI to be recognised as an agile and globally connected Indian management institution, academically rigorous and closely engaged with the world of practice. Change of this kind cannot be imposed by a memo. We have to listen, earn trust, and bring people with us. But we must also be willing to decide and move.

Q: Finally, how does your blend of global academic experience at Chicago Booth and Texas A&M’s Mays Business School, and industry experience at Brooke Bond (Unilever), position you to lead IMI’s transformation?

A: I have been fortunate to spend substantial parts of my career in both academia and industry. That has made me deeply respectful of each world, and occasionally impatient with both.

Academia taught me to value evidence, intellectual rigour, and the discipline of asking the right question before rushing towards an answer. My years at Chicago Booth and Texas A&M showed me how strong research cultures are built and how a business school can pursue academic excellence while remaining closely connected to industry.

Industry taught me a different lesson. An elegant idea has limited value if nobody can execute it. At Brooke Bond, and later in advertising and media, I learnt to understand customers, work across functions, make decisions with incomplete information, and recognise the difference between a strategy on paper and one that survives contact with the market.

IMI needs both perspectives. We must protect academic depth and independence while becoming more responsive and accountable for outcomes. We cannot transplant an American business-school model into India, or run a university as though it were a corporation. We have to learn from both worlds, adapt to our context, and do the hard work of implementation. That is what I hope to contribute.