Mr. Rajesh Garodia, former Pro Vice-Chancellor (Pro-VC) of Ashoka University and one of India’s prominent corporate finance and management tycoons, passed away on 6th July 2024. As Pro-VC from 2019 to January 2024, he oversaw on-campus administrative activities, such as Finance, HR and Operations.
A chartered accountant by training, Garodia kick-started his career in 1991 as a manager at Hindustan Unilever. From there, he rose to key leadership positions across a number of businesses in a career spanning three decades. Following a fifteen-year stint at American Express, he moved to EXL, where he served as the Senior Vice President, in charge of Travel, Transportation and Logistics.
As Pro-VC, Garodia played an instrumental role in overseeing a key phase of Ashoka University’s growth, joining in 2019, at a time when even the current ‘south campus’ at Sonipat was semi-operational. He oversaw the expansion of the current campus, and ran Ashoka smoothly during the onslaught of the Covid-19 pandemic.
In 2022, he had to step down from a full-time position due to his battle with cancer, but continued to hold the post of Pro-VC and actively contributed to Ashoka till the beginning of this year, when he finally handed over the reigns to the current Pro-VC, Rama Malik.
In the course of his tenure, Garodia oversaw a 50% increase in the total infrastructure of Ashoka’s present ‘south’ campus to the 1.5 million square feet it spans today. This included the construction of buildings familiar to all Ashokans such as RH-5, the HDFC Library, and the tallest building on campus, the Faculty Housing Block-2.
Ashoka founder and Chairperson of the Board of Trustees Pramath Raj Sinha describes Garodia as the campus development project’s “point man,” who worked on every aspect of the north campus from the acquisition of land, to getting approvals from the government, and liaising with architects, project managers and construction firms.
Tact and diplomacy were some of Garodia’s best qualities, says Sinha. They became crucial not only in dealing with various government officials in order to get approvals for construction, but also when he had to field calls from many “prominent individuals who wanted favourable consideration for candidates” in the admissions process. Ensuring that such cases were handled without either causing offence, or compromising the integrity of the admissions procedure, was something the pair often worked on.
In an interview with The Edict in 2019, Garodia had highlighted how in his first year on the job he had to engage in a legal tussle after it emerged that a National Highway was slated to be built on the land purchased for the north campus. This tryst with the courts was ultimately successful, resulting in the foundation stone of the new campus being laid in 2022.
Chancellor Rudrangshu Mukherjee speaks highly of the Pro-VC’s leadership during the pandemic, stating that “he came into his own” at that difficult time and never lost his cool. He highlighted Garodia’s “essential humility” as a quality he highly respected, describing how he was “never hesitant to seek advice from me and was always willing to take feedback.”
Venkat Eshwara, whose term as Pro-VC overlapped with Garodia’s, describes his colleague as a very analytical individual. He was impressed by Garodia’s ability to “understand the core of something” applied to both people and numbers, and to remain objective at all times. While Garodia focused on the administration of the campus. Eshwara handled a variety of external activities, such as development, placements, and strategic communications.
The bond between the two extended beyond Ashoka: both of them graduated in the late 80s from St. Xavier’s College in Kolkata, although they only found out about this connection when they started working together. Eshwara was equally glowing in his remarks on Garodia as an individual - “he was a very nice guy with a big smile, and a big heart; a proud father; and a dear colleague and friend.”
Bhaskar Mishra, who as Vice President of Operations worked closely with Garodia, also remembered him warmly. He described how Garodia would regularly work through the night to achieve the set goals on time. Mishra added that although Garodia was a vigilant taskmaster, he was also “very fun” to work with. He emphasised that for the pro-VC, ensuring that Ashokans were safe and cared for came above everything - as evinced by his “proactive and immediate” leadership during the SH-5 housing requirement, which ensured that the building was made habitable post-haste.
Garodia also spoke about the Monsoon 2019 SH-5 housing crisis in his 2019 conversation with The Edict. At the time, SH-5, now known as RH-5, was not yet fully completed. Although ASP students were assigned housing on the first four floors of the building, students noticed that the corridors were not properly sealed off, exposing the dorms to bad weather, in addition to paint fumes making students feel unwell. Garodia was candid about the issues in SH-5, and admitted that the University’s administration could have been “smarter and more process-focused” when it came to constructing infrastructure for the Ashoka community.
Garodia’s time at Ashoka also saw the bolstering of the university’s academic firepower. The Centre for Economic Data and Analysis, the Center for Economic Policy, and the Centre for Climate Change and Sustainability were all inaugurated during his stint as Pro-VC. Another initiative he worked on was AshokaX, a set of online courses intended to provide subject matter expertise to working professionals.
According to Sinha, Garodia’s duties even extended to regular meetings with the Chief Minister of Haryana, to oversee the Chief Minister’s Good Governance Associates programme, which involved the Haryana government partnering with Ashoka to provide fellowships for professionals interested in governance and public policy.
Bhaskar Mishra expressed feeling particularly saddened by the fact that Garodia would not be around to see the inauguration of Ashoka’s new campus this August. “[It’s] a loss that he’s not there, [to see the completion of] whatever he started.” He further added how Garodia was always looking forward to students being able to use the new campus.
Garodia is survived by his wife and two sons. Ashoka's new 'north campus' which he worked on for years is set to open for operations in the upcoming Monsoon 2024 semester.
(Edited by Aditya Roy and Keerthana Panchanathan)
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