Raghavan 'Ram' Ramanan

Biography

Dr. Ram Ramanan is Industry Associate Professor Interim Director of the Center for Sustainable Enterprise at the IIT Stuart School of Business. Ram has over 40 years of corporate, consulting and academic experience in leadership roles with ExxonMobil, AECOM, ICF International, and Trinity in the management of sustainability, ethics, environmental, health and safety issues. Throughout his professional career or journey, Ramanan has been recognized for his development and implementation of corporate risk management and sustainability strategies and programs, industry group advocacy efforts, and environmental standards development at the state, national, and global levels.
  
Ram is a Fulbright Fellow, a Board Certified Environmental Engineer (American Academy of Environmental Engineers), and Licensed Professional Engineer in Texas, India, and the United Kingdom.  Most recently, Ramanan was nominated and accepted to the Editorial Review Board of the International Journal of Risk & Contingency Management (IJRCM).  He also serves as a director on the International Board of the Air and Waste Management Association (A&WMA) and is chair of A&WMA’s Education Council. He is a Fellow of A&WMA and an elected fellow of the Indian Institute of Engineers and the Indian Institute of Chemical Engineers.

At IIT Stuart, Ramanan serves as faculty advisor to Net Impact, a group that helps prepare a new generation to work for a sustainable future. In fall 2013, IIT Stuart was ranked #22 globally in sustainability by the international Net Impact organization, and the Stuart student chapter received Silver chapter recognition. Ramanan also runs the Capstone courses in partnership with the industry, a key part of IIT Stuart’s educational experience, where sponsored projects give students unique opportunities to apply their skills in professional situations and gain real-world experience in their fields.

Ram Ramanan, an ExxonMobil retiree, has developed and implemented corporate risk management and sustainability strategies and programs, managed corporate liability at dozens of superfund sites and advised several mega new ventures (>$1 billion) on environmental and social impact assessments in Asia, Africa, and the Americas. He has also led industry group advocacy efforts, and actively participated in environmental standards development at the state and federal levels in the United States through American Petroleum Institute and American Chemistry Council, and at the national/global level in India, Nigeria, and the World Bank. Ram won the Mobil Elite award from the President of Mobil Oil for saving billions of dollars in society's resources through his creative ideas and win-win solutions.

Furthermore, prior to his second retirement, Dr. Ramanan served as Fellow and Director at ICF International, where he helped position ICF as a thought leader in the commercial sector governance, risk management and compliance space, through industry outreach, speaking at and leading panels at major international conferences and corporate events. Prior to that, he served as President of a subsidiary of Trinity Consultants, providing climate change and sustainability advisory services, and executive education and training to Fortune 500 companies. In the mid-eighties, prior to joining ExxonMobil, Ram managed air quality and community right to know advisory services to corporate clients at AECOM-ENSR. From early seventies through mid-eighties, Ram assumed increasing levels of responsibility, from Design Engineer to General Manager providing turnkey air pollution control systems for the power and petroleum sectors in India, Africa and Thailand.

An academic at heart, Dr. Ramanan has taught several courses as adjunct or visiting faculty: Environmental Finance, Contemporary Issue in Sustainability and Ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility, Environmental Economics and Sustainability at Indian Institute of Technology, the University of Texas at Arlington and the IIT Stuart School of Business, Chicago. As industry board advisor at The University of Texas at Austin, Ram promoted the concept that led to the establishment of the "Risk Management Center". At ExxonMobil, Dr. Ramanan developed and conducted extensive in-house training programs for professionals. In addition, as a consultant he has taught executive education and professional development courses in Bahrain, Canada, India, and the USA.

Dr. Ramanan has published and/or presented over thirty technical and management papers throughout the world, including the US Conference Board. As a US Department of State Environmental Leadership Fulbright Fellow, Ram spoke at over twenty major academic and professional forums ranging from the Reserve Bank of India research wing to many of the leading management and engineering schools (IIM/IIT) in India. In July 2013, he published Environmental Ethics and Sustainability: A Casebook for Environmental Professionals through CRC Press with co-author Hal Taback.

Education

Ph.D., University of Texas at Dallas, Environmental Science Engineering
M.B.A. Executive, University of Texas at Austin
M.S., University of Bombay, Chemical Engineering and Marketing Management
B.S., Indian Institute of Technology, Chemical Engineering with honors

Areas of Research / Professional Expertise

In today's global environment, societal needs are defining markets, and key issues range from poverty, hunger, water, sustainability, climate change and ethics. Corporate business leaders have to endeavor to expound on how these issues get integrated in business through strategy and structure and how to build new competencies in managing transparency, accountability, stakeholder engagement, ethics culture and social innovation that are critical for business success in the Next Economy. My passion is to develop future leaders with a mindset to perpetually innovate and creatively seek win-win situations where stakeholder returns are maximized. I bring corporate, consulting and academic perspectives from direct experience coupled with regulator and public viewpoint garnered through years of participation in advocacy and public hearings to the class room. This is further enriched by broad global range of cultural and functional diversity gained through working in four continents and over a dozen countries.

Personal Interests

In today's global environment, societal needs are defining markets, and key issues range from poverty, hunger, water, sustainability, climate change and ethics. Corporate business leaders have to endeavor to expound on how these issues get integrated in business through strategy and structure and how to build new competencies in managing transparency, accountability, stakeholder engagement, ethics culture and social innovation that are critical for business success in the Next Economy. My passion is to develop future leaders with a mindset to perpetually innovate and creatively seek win-win situations where stakeholder returns are maximized. I bring corporate, consulting and academic perspectives from direct experience coupled with regulator and public viewpoint garnered through years of participation in advocacy and public hearings to the class room. This is further enriched by broad global range of cultural and functional diversity gained through working in four continents and over a dozen countries.

Books