2-year period (1 September 2014 to 31 August 2016), Himanshu was the Dean, MISB Bocconi (India Campus of Bocconi, Milan), and Professor, SDA Bocconi School of Management, Milan, Italy. Professor Himanshu Rai is an educationist – an alumnus of Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIMA), he has been teaching PG and Doctoral students at Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow (IIML) since 2006. His core area is Human Resource Management, wherein he focuses on Negotiation; Mediation; Arbitration; Strategic HRM; and Leadership. He frequently conducts training programmes and workshops for executives as well as bureaucrats around the world. He has earlier taught in the HR area at XLRI Jamshedpur. As the Convener of CAT 2010, he successfully led the largest format change in world’s testing history exceeding all global standards of testing. Through his initiatives gender and educational background parity was achieved by IIMs.

His profile includes a stint of over 8 years at Tata Steel, India, where he played a pivotal role in developing Quality Systems for his Departments and the Communication Policy for the Company. It was there that he found his passion – trekking in the Himalayas, which in turn led him to a clear vision of what he wanted to do with his life. He wished to help people become aware of their own selves, choices and opportunities that life presents them with, and realize their potential to the fullest. He believes that this can be best achieved through quality education.He decided to enter the world of academics and went on to pursue his doctorate at Indian Institute of Management – Ahmedabad. He sincerely believes in the power of academics to lead the change that people aspire to bring about in our society. His personal focus is not just academic excellence but achieving it on the basis of ethics, integrity and a need for self-actualisation.