Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad - MBA All India Rank - 1

The decade following independence in 1947 was witness to a surge of innovative ideas to build a fledgling independent nation into a model democratic state committed to growth with equity. The establishment of the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad (IIMA) was the outcome of one such innovative initiative.
Led by space scientist Dr. Vikram Sarabhai and an eminent industrialist and philanthropist Shri Kasturbhai Lalbhai, and proactively supported by the then Chief Minister of Gujarat, Dr. Jivraj Mehta, a group of enlightened individuals set up IIMA in 1961. This group ably wove together a coalition of five actors - the governments at the centre and the state, local industrialists, the Ford Foundation and the Harvard Business School, to establish the foundations of the Institute.

IIMA was set up as an institution that would be managed by a Society, the IIMA Society, created under the Societies Act. The Institute was to be run by a Board of Governors, constituted by the IIMA Society; the Board would have representation from all the relevant constituencies so as to reflect the multifarious needs of a developing nation. IIMA was therefore conceived as a Board-managed institution, free from the exclusive control of any one constituency. Thus, operational freedom is an integral part of the DNA of IIMA.
IIMA has been consistently ranked as the premier management school in the country by several national agencies. IIMA programmes are also ranked highly in several international rankings. In 2008, IIMA became the first management school in the country to be awarded EQUIS (European Quality Improvement System) accreditation by the EFMD (European Foundation for Management Development).

Vision and Strategic Priorities : In accordance with its broader vision of 'educating leaders of enterprises', IIMA, in the recent past, has been following a three-pronged approach – connect, nurture, and grow.

IIMA is connecting with alumni, corporates, researchers, and the local community by reaching out to them proactively. We seek to nurture a high-performance work environment by supporting a climate of autonomy, stretch, and team work amongst our faculty members, staff and students. And we are growing our capacity, in a thoughtful and strategic manner, so as to have an impact commensurate with our ambition and to ensure that we continuously improve the quality of our people and our learning.

IIMA History : The building of an educational institution is often an act of faith and the expression of that faith is in a philosophy on the basis of which those who build such institutions act" (Ravi J. Matthai, first full-time Director, 1965-72)

‘Vidya viniyogadvikasa'— ‘development through the distribution or application of knowledge': this is the motto which has guided the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad (IIMA) since its establishment in 1961 in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India, enabling it to develop a reputation for excellence and leadership in management education. Created and nurtured as an institute of management and not just as a business school, IIMA has produced numerous leader-managers for the business and public sectors who, with their dreams, aspirations and vision, have shaped their organizational, economic and social contexts. In this educational journey IIMA has been led by its commitment to:

• hosting faculty who have distinguished themselves as teachers, researchers, consultants and policy shapers, and are constantly in touch with the world of practice
• developing innovative and appropriate curricula and pedagogy that are student-centred
• fostering research as a tool to extend the frontiers of knowledge, both applied and conceptual
• creating management scholars—teachers and researchers
• establishing infrastructure of high quality.

Dr. Vikram Sarabhai, a pioneering space scientist and the first Director (part-time, 1961-65), Kasturbhai Lalbhai, an industrialist and Chairman of the first Board of Governors, and Ravi J. Matthai, the first full-time Director (1965-72), played visionary roles in setting the new institute on its developmental path. Faith—in the concept of faculty governance, in faculty and staff empowerment, in the institute's ability to provide education of the highest quality, in ideas like autonomy and self-regulation and in the value of alumni as ambassadors of the institute—was the keystone on which the institute was built. IIMA collaborated with the Harvard Business School for an initial five-year period, and this set the tone for innovation in pedagogy—the case method of teaching, for instance.  Apart from its strong focus on industry and business management education, IIMA, since its early years, has engaged with sectors like agriculture, education, health, cooperatives, transportation, population studies, energy and public administration.