Celebrating the life of Padma Shri Bala V Balachandran, founder, chairman of the Board and Dean Emeritus of Great Lakes Institute of Management (GLIM), Chennai, a memorial will come up on campus in his honour.

The announcement was made on Founder’s Day at Great Lakes Institute by late Bala’s son, Sudhakar Balachandran, Director of MBA Graduate Studies and Associate Professor of Accounting at the University of Illinois, Chicago, in the presence of Vasantha Balachandran, wife of Bala Balachandran; Suresh Ramanathan, Dean, GLIM, Chennai; Gautam Lakhamraju, Chief Operating Officer, GLIM; along with the teaching faculty, and staff.

Illustrious legacy

His memorial site is conceived as a partially closed and open structure, and it is expected to come up near the resource centre which is a tranquil area on the Great Lakes campus. His entire life journey, right from his humble origins to how he built the GLIM and his contributions to the country and business management education will be placed in an aesthetic way so that students, staff, faculty and corporate and other visitors can derive inspiration from it, a release from the institute, said.

Sudhakar Balachandran, in a release, said, “The site could become a place of reflection for a lot of people. The values that Bala lived by will be epitomised at the memorial.”

Bala V Balachandran was born on 5 July 1937, and passed on 28 September 2021 in Chicago after a brief illness. He was Kellogg’s distinguished professor of accounting and information management (emeritus in service) at Northwestern University and served in the Indian Army briefly before departing to the US to pursue his doctoral studies.

From there began his illustrious career as a professor, consultant, mentor, author, entrepreneur, life coach, and so much more. In 2004, he set up the Great Lakes Institute of Management, Chennai, which today has another campus in Gurgaon as well.