SPEAKER: SOUMITRA DUTTA

Dr. Soumitra Dutta is the Roland Berger Professor of e-Business and Information Technology and Dean for Technology and e-Learning at INSEAD.

INSEAD, with campuses in France and Singapore, has been named the #1 international business school in the world by BusinessWeek.

His responsibilities include the management of INSEAD Online, a subsidiary of INSEAD dedicated to creating and marketing e-learning courses.

He is the faculty director of Elab, INSEAD's initiative in building a center of excellence in teaching and research in the digital economy in collaboration with leading international organizations such as Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, SAP, Cable and Wireless and Alcatel.

Prior to joining the faculty of INSEAD, he was employed with Schlumberger in Japan and General Electric in the USA. Professor Dutta obtained his Ph.D. in computer science and his M.S. in business administration from the University of California at Berkeley. He has served as a visiting Professor at several international universities including the Haas School of Business (Berkeley), the Solvay Business School (Brussels) and the Athens Laboratory for Business Administration (ALBA).

His research and consulting have focused on breakthrough approaches to the inter-relationships between innovation, technology and organizational design. He has studied the optimization of the crucial 'back-end' organizations and processes that drive business success and failure. Drawing upon state-of-the-art research with many of the world's most innovative and influential global enterprises, his writing introduces new models of strategic thinking, and innovative processes and marketing approaches designed to fit them.

His latest book is "The Bright Stuff: How Innovative People and Technology can make the Old Economy New" (Financial Times/Prentice Hall, 2002). His previous books were "Embracing the Net: Get.Competitive" (Financial Times/Prentice Hall, 2001) and "Process Reengineering, Organizational Change and Performance Improvement" (Mc-Graw Hill, 1999). His next manuscript is tentatively titled "Engaged Governance in a Connected World". In addition, he has published over 50 articles in leading international journals.

A fellow of the World Economic Forum, he has won several awards for research and pedagogy. His research has been showcased in the media such as CNN, BBC, CNBC and several international publications including Newsweek, Time, International Herald Tribune, Information Strategy, Chief Executive and in a number of national publications. He has also been the project leader in a number of high-impact research projects conducted in collaboration with global companies. He has taught in and consulted with leading international corporations across the world.