Spears School Welcoming Ramu Damodaran For Lecture

Friday, March 16, 2018

Ramu Damodaran, an executive with varied and extensive work experience with the United Nations, will deliver a lecture at Oklahoma State University’s Spears School of Business on March 30.

Damodaran’s talk, “The United Nations and the Contemporary World Crisis,” is scheduled for the LeNorman Auditorium in the new Business Building at 3:30 p.m. and is open to the OSU and Stillwater community.

A reception will follow at 5 p.m. in the building’s Keystone Commons area.

Damodaran currently operates as deputy director for partnership and public engagement in the United Nations Department of Public Information’s Outreach Division, and is also chief of the United Nations Academic Impact initiative, which aligns institutions of higher learning and research with the objectives of the United Nations and the United States.

His responsibilities focus particularly on outreach to, and partnerships with, the non-governmental, academic and private sector constituencies, as well as to the general public.

“Mr. Damodaran’s visit to OSU is doubly connected,” said Ramesh Sharda, vice dean of the Watson Graduate School of Management. “First, he came to the United Nations through India’s Foreign Service. OSU’s relationship with India is very strong. President Burns Hargis and a team of OSU administrators visited several universities in India to cement those relationships even further.

“Given OSU’s many global initiatives, it is especially heartening to welcome someone who is now leading several academic projects at the United Nations. Our students will really benefit from hearing about global issues from Mr. Damodaran.”

Damodaran is also the current secretary of the United Nations Committee on Information. Damodaran’s earlier posts with the organization have included the departments of Peacekeeping and Special Political Questions, as well as the Executive Office of the Secretary-General. He has been a member of the Indian Foreign Service, where he was promoted to the rank of Ambassador, and where he served as executive assistant to the prime minister of India.

“I am honored and delighted that Mr. Damodaran will be speaking to my MBA Professional Development Class,” said Ajay Sukhdial, associate professor in the School of Marketing and International Business. “Since my undergraduate college days, I have been a keen admirer of Mr. Damodaran’s exceptional professional achievements as well of his extensive humanitarian work on behalf of the UN.

“His deep knowledge about our fast-changing global world and the domain of international affairs is unparalleled, and I believe that his advice to students about how they can best leverage their education and skills to ‘make a difference’ in today’s world will be invaluable to them.”

Prior to joining national government service, he worked extensively in Indian mass media, including television, radio and print publications, including as a news anchor and disc jockey. His radio feature “Echoes of a Generation” was awarded the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union Prize.

For more information on OSU’s Watson Graduate School of Management, visit http://watson.okstate.edu/or call 405-744-9000.