The Graduate Management Admissions Council (GMAC), which owns and administers the GMAT entry exam for business school, has appointed a new president and chief executive who brings deep IT experience to the role. Sangeet Chowfla will join GMAC as president in September and assume the role of CEO in January 2014 when David Wilson, who has held the chief role for 18 years, steps down.
Chowfla, who was born in India but is now a U.S. citizen, began his career with IBM in New Delhi and then worked for 18 years for Hewlett-Packard in Europe, the Middle East, Asia Pacific and the United States, GMAC reports. He also spent time as a partner in a venture capital firm and finally as chief strategy officer at a division of Comviva Technologies, a leading Indian telecommunications software company.
According to James Bradford, outgoing chairman of the GMAC board and dean of Vanderbilt University’s Owen School of Management, Chowfla was just the kind of candidate the board sought as a successor to Wilson. “His global business experience, his understanding of technology and its impact on consumers and his understanding of the way companies must anticipate, plan for and actively engage in the changing global marketplace are all skills GMAC will need moving forward, he said in a statement.
In accepting the appointment, Chowfla praised GMAC, noting that taking the GMAT and the opportunities it opened up for him were life-changing. “My job will be to take that strong foundation — GMAC 2.0, if you will — build on it, shape it for the future and establish a new, even stronger GMAC: GMAC 3.0,” he said in a statement.
Chowfla, who currently lives in New Delhi, India, will relocate to Northern Virginia as part of assuming this new role.
