Salary of Thunderbird’s Ramaswamy becomes a controversial subject.
By American Bazaar Staff
WASHINGTON, DC: If anybody had any doubts about getting into the teaching profession, rest easy after reading this: Kannan Ramaswamy, a professor of global strategy management at the Arizona-based Thunderbird School of Global Management, made a whopping $700,096 in 2011.
That sum by Kannan, who has an MBA and a B.S. in Physics from the University of Madras, beats even what the dean of the Harvard Business School Nitin Nohria makes, who was paid $584,749 in 2011. It even beat what the then Thunderbird President Angel Cabrera’s made, $ 584,789. Cabrera left Thunderbird in July 2012. Not that we are not telling you to dream of becoming Dean or President one day…
According to the Thunderbird website, Ramaswamy is an expert on global strategy, emerging markets – including India and South Asia, the energy sector, corporate governance, mergers and acquisitions and global management.
Ramaswamy’s hefty salary has become a controversial subject at the management school, which was rated as one of the top ranked institutions to get an international MBA, but in recent years has been hit by fall in admissions and drastic fall in placement rates, and has a $4 million deficit in fiscal 2013. Its alumni include BP CEO Robert Dudley and former Morgan Stanley International Chairman Walid Chammath.
Ramaswamy’s salary has come under scrutiny after the school decided to get out of its debt by agreeing to a partnership deal with a for-profit education provider called Laureate Education Inc. which has not gone down too well with the Board, with two members giving in their resignations, protesting against the image of the institution being sullied by the agreement.
A scathing report in Business Insider said: “…Global strategy professor Kannan Ramaswarmy was paid total compensation, with benefits, of $700,096 in fiscal 2011, according to government records filed by Thunderbird. That’s more than the $662,054 in total compensation made by Harvard Business School Dean Nitin Nohria or then-Thunderbird President Angel Cabrera who pulled down $584,749 in 2011. And it’s more than the estimated $550,000 in pay, benefits and perks that President Obama makes.
“How in the world can a struggling school which has been in decline for many years afford to pay Ramaswamy so much? For one thing, he teaches in several of the school’s executive education programs which are among its more lucrative ventures. For another, he has tenure and the school can’t cross him off its employment roster even if it wanted.”
And Fortune weighed in with this analysis about Ramaswamy’s salary: “It’s not unusual for a world-class faculty to be paid so generously, but the highest paid business school professors tend to be widely known and publicly visible figures at universities that can afford them, not at a troubled school that has been in a long-term fight for survival.”
We have this to say to Ramaswamy: ‘if you earn it, keep it. But don’t try go for a promotion, you know why.’