Reddy is a professor of design, innovation.
By Deepak Chitnis
WASHINGTON, DC: Professor N. Mohan Reddy has been appointed as the new endowed chair of the B. Charles Ames Professorship in Management at Case Western Reserve University.
The chair was made possible by a $3.6 million donation from the Ames Family Foundation Trustees, and various other donors and friends of the Ames, a former professor at Case Western. Reddy, who is a professor of design and innovation at the school’s Weatherhead School of Management, is the first person to hold the prestigious position.
Ames was the first-ever chair of Weatherhead’s visiting committee, and has donated a total of $6 million to the school over the course of his life. In a press release, Ames’ daughter, Cindy Ames Huffman, lauded Reddy’s selection of the professorship that has been created in her father’s name.
“We are delighted by the appointment of our dear friend Mohan Reddy, whose teaching and service to students and to the business community is exceptional,” she said. “As our father once said, ‘A quality faculty attracts a quality student; it’s a cycle in which you have to have quality on both sides of the spectrum.’”
Reddy earned his B.S. degree from Mysore University in 1975, followed by his M.B.A. from Case Western in 1977. He then earned his Ph.D. in 1985, also from Case Western, meaning that his association with the university has lasted nearly 40 years.
According to his staff page, Reddy’s research interests are two-pronged. “The first is focused on how non-market institutions (professional societies, trade associations) influence the adoption and diffusion of new technologies. A second area of interest understands the dynamics of how public goods (social goods) are created through private (corporate) interests.”
He teaches courses in Business Marketing, Managerial marketing, and “Theory and Practice of Collective Action.” Reddy was formerly the dean of Weatherhead, from 2006-2012, but stepped down to return to teaching full-time.
Based in Cleveland, Case Western Reserve University is a privately funded school that has borne 16 Nobel Prize-winning laureates and has nearly 10,000 undergraduate and post-graduate students, with a full-time faculty of around 2,400.