Today, Soumitra Dutta – Global Academic Leader, Innovation Expert & Former Dean of Oxford Saïd Business School

Soumitra Dutta is an internationally recognized academic leader, author, and innovation expert known for his contributions to technology policy, digital transformation, and global management education. With a career spanning more than three decades across Europe, the United States, and Asia, he has held senior leadership roles at some of the world’s most influential universities, including Oxford, Cornell, and INSEAD.

Most recently, Dutta served as the Peter Moores Dean of Saïd Business School, University of Oxford (2022–2025), where he oversaw strategic initiatives in innovation, digital readiness, and global partnerships. Before joining Oxford, he was the Founding Dean of the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business, where he led one of the largest business school integrations in the United States and helped secure a landmark $150 million naming gift from SC Johnson.

Earlier in his career, Dutta spent more than 20 years at INSEAD, serving in several senior leadership roles and founding the school’s pioneering digital research hub, eLab@INSEAD.

A globally influential researcher, Dutta is the co-creator of the Global Innovation Index (GII) and the Network Readiness Index (NRI)—two of the world’s most widely referenced reports in innovation and digital competitiveness. His work has been cited in major media outlets, international economic forums, and policy circles worldwide.

Beyond academia, he has served on the boards of leading global organizations, including Dassault Systèmes and Sodexo, and has held advisory positions with the World Economic Forum, Wharton EAB, and the Global Business School Network (GBSN), where he served as Board Chair.

Dutta earned his Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of California, Berkeley, and his B.Tech. from IIT Delhi, where he graduated second in his class. Over the course of his career, he has authored numerous books, articles, and global reports that shape thinking on innovation, competitiveness, artificial intelligence, and the future of work.

In September 2025, Dutta stepped down from his position as Dean of Oxford Saïd Business School following an internal university investigation. He continues to contribute to global discussions on innovation, technology policy, and responsible leadership

Beginnings: A Mind Wired for Possibility

When Soumitra Dutta walked into the quiet corridors of IIT Delhi in the early 1980s, he carried little more than a passion for technology and a hunger for excellence. Few could have predicted that this young engineer would one day lead some of the world’s most renowned business schools, shape global innovation policy, serve on major corporate boards, and become one of the most recognized academic leaders of his generation.

Born and raised in India, Dutta’s brilliance surfaced early. At IIT Delhi, he ranked second in his class, collecting academic honors as effortlessly as some collected books. But for him, India was just the starting line.

He dreamed bigger.

He crossed continents to study at the University of California, Berkeley, where he immersed himself in artificial intelligence at a time when AI was not a buzzword—it was a frontier. Under the legendary Prof. Lotfi Zadeh, Dutta built the intellectual foundation that would anchor his global career.

With three graduate degrees—including a Ph.D. in Computer Science—he stepped into the world not merely as a scholar, but as a thinker ready to shape institutions.

INSEAD: Twenty Years of Building

For more than two transformative decades, Soumitra Dutta’s journey at INSEAD—one of the world’s most international and globally influential business schools—was defined by visionary leadership, institutional innovation, and a pioneering spirit that helped shape the school’s digital and global identity.

Joining INSEAD in 1989 as a young professor fresh from Berkeley, Dutta quickly distinguished himself as a scholar who understood the importance of technology long before the digital age had fully arrived. His work bridged strategy, analytics, and emerging technologies, positioning him at the forefront of a new wave of business scholarship. Over the years, he rose into multiple senior leadership roles that placed him at the center of INSEAD’s expansion and modernization.

As Dean of Technology & E-Learning, he championed early digital learning platforms and helped integrate innovative technology-driven teaching methods across programs at a time when business schools were only beginning to explore online education. As Dean of Executive Education, he shaped one of the world’s most prestigious global executive programs, strengthening INSEAD’s ties with Fortune 500 companies, governments, and emerging markets.

Later, as Dean of External Relations, he played a pivotal role in expanding INSEAD’s global presence and brand visibility during the school’s rapid growth phase, contributing to the strategic development of its campuses in Singapore and Abu Dhabi, which today remain central to INSEAD’s identity as a multi-continental institution. Perhaps one of his most enduring contributions was the creation of eLab@INSEAD, an innovative research center dedicated to digital strategy, social analytics, and the role of technology in business transformation.

Through eLab and his research collaborations, he co-developed global reports such as the Global Information Technology Report (with the World Economic Forum) and laid the groundwork for what would later evolve into the Network Readiness Index (NRI)—benchmarks that still influence policymakers around the world.

At INSEAD, Soumitra Dutta became known not only as a scholar and administrator, but as a builder—of ideas, platforms, and global networks. His time at the school cemented his reputation as a thought leader capable of aligning academic excellence with real-world technological change, and it established the foundation for his later achievements at Cornell University, Oxford, and beyond.

Even after stepping down from Oxford, Soumitra Dutta remains a powerful and active force in shaping the global conversation on innovation, technology, and responsible leadership. He continues to influence international research agendas, serve on high-level advisory boards, mentor emerging leaders, and contribute to innovation policy frameworks used by governments and global institutions.

Soumitra Dutta’s Cornell Chapter
— A Bold Experiment in Scale, Integration, and Digital Vision

Soumitra Dutta’s tenure at Cornell University stands as one of the most ambitious and transformative chapters of his career—an era marked by institutional reinvention, digital-first thinking, and one of the largest philanthropic gifts in business education history.

In 2012, he arrived in Ithaca as the newly appointed Dean of the Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management, the first business school dean at Cornell with a deep background in technology and global strategy. Almost immediately, Dutta became a central architect of a sweeping academic vision that aligned Cornell with the demands of a rapidly evolving digital economy. His leadership expanded far beyond the Johnson School when he was charged with leading the historic integration of three distinct Cornell business schools—the Johnson School, the Dyson School of Applied Economics & Management, and the School of Hotel Administration—into the unified Cornell SC Johnson College of Business, an ambitious project unprecedented in scale within U.S. higher education.

Overseeing 240 faculty, 3,400 students, and a budget of approximately $250 million, Dutta helped build a shared identity, integrated operations, and a new governance model across these highly ranked schools. Under his stewardship, Cornell received a landmark $150 million naming gift from SC Johnson, celebrated in The Wall Street Journal as one of the largest ever awarded to a business school.

At the same time, Dutta played an instrumental role in shaping the early trajectory of Cornell Tech, the university’s cutting-edge technology campus in New York City, where he championed a one-year, digitally focused MBA program designed for the emerging tech economy. His emphasis on digital leadership, corporate partnerships, and interdisciplinary innovation helped position Cornell as a forward-looking institution at the intersection of business, technology, and society.

Yet, his tenure was not without turbulence: in 2018, after years of rapid change and organizational restructuring, Dutta stepped down from his deanship—an event covered by Clear Admit and other media outlets, noting the abrupt nature of his departure. Even with this complex close, his Cornell years remain defined by bold vision, institutional courage, and foundational changes that continue to shape the university’s approach to business education.

For Cornell, Dutta was not simply a dean—he was a builder, an integrator, and a catalyst for modernizing business education for the digital era.