Hopkins business school dean Gupta stepping down

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Yash P. Gupta, the first dean of the Carey Business School, will step down at the end of June to take a top post at a Canadian telecommunications firm, Johns Hopkins University announced Monday.

Hopkins President Ronald J. Daniels said he will open a national search to find a replacement soon. Gupta’s last day will be June 30.

In a letter to the school’s staff, Daniels said Gupta was a “tireless evangelist for the school,” which was established in 2007 with a $50 million donation from real estate investor Walter Polk Carey.

Gupta, after spending two decades in academic posts around the country, joined the Carey school Jan. 1, 2008, and was responsible for hiring much of the faculty, recruiting members of advisory and oversight boards and moving the school from the Downtown Center building at Fayette and Charles streets to the new Legg Mason tower in Harbor East.

The first class of nearly 90 students is set to graduate from the Global MBA program next spring.

“I give all due credit for this significant progress to the first dean of the Carey School, Yash P. Gupta,” Daniels wrote.

Gupta will join SDP Telecom Inc., of Montreal, as the firm’s chief executive officer and president. SDP designs and produces components for the telecommunications industry and is run by Gupta’s brother, Ghan Shyam Gupta, who will become vice president of sales and marketing.

Yash Gupta already holds a seat on the company’s board.

“Yash’s addition represents a unique opportunity to expand our presence in global markets as he has led the development of significant partnerships with multi-national companies and academic institutions around the world,” company spokesman Michael Clayton said in a written statement.

Gupta could not be reached for comment Monday.

The Carey school’s executive vice dean, Phillip Phan, will take Gupta’s post on an interim basis starting July 1, the start of the new academic year, according to the school.

In his letter, Daniels wrote he and Provost Lloyd Minor will seek “a new dean with the passion and vision to advance the important work that Yash Gupta has done.”

Hopkins spokesman Dennis O’Shea declined to discuss potential candidates for the job, or whether Daniels would look to academia or the private sector for Gupta’s replacement.

“Really, there has been no opportunity yet to set down parameters for the search,” O’Shea said, adding “the ordinary course of events is to have a [search] committee.”

Before taking the top job at Carey, Gupta taught and served as dean at the University of Southern California Marshall School of Business. He also held professorships at the University of Washington, University of Manitoba and University of Louisville. And he was dean of the University of Colorado at Denver business school from 1992 to 1999.