Prof. J. Philip, renowned management educationist, passes away

Professor J. Philip, the Founder and Chairman of Xavier Institute of Management & Entrepreneurship (XIME) passed away on Saturday (February 21, 2026). The Institution deeply mourns the eminent management educationist’s passing.

Prof. J. Philip was very much the country’s foremost savant in the field of management education. Commencing with the distinction to have been the youngest Dean of XLRI, Jamshedpur in the late nineteen sixties and becoming an eminent institution builder as the founder Chairman of Xavier Institute of Management & Entrepreneurship (XIME) Bangalore for three decades till his last days, his career in service to management education spanned for over sixty five years, a singular record in the history of Indian management education.

At XLRI, one of the pioneers of business education in the country, the young J. Philip won his spurs in the late 1960s as designer of its ground-breaking post graduate course in management. Equally lauded was the exceptional competence he had displayed as its Dean in sustaining the institution’s high standards on a par with those of the best, not only in India but overseas.

It was his stellar record at XLRI combined with a creditable stint at Harvard that led to his selection by the Government of India to head the staff college of the Steel Authority of India in Ranchi. J. Philip’s flair as a leader and innovator was in full flow in the way he performed at the helm of that premier public sector training establishment, leaving a durable imprint on it.

It is given to few management educationists to have their timbre tested in a demanding executive position in corporate business, much as it constitutes the focal point of their vocation. J. Philip’s well-acclaimed success in teaching management as an academic discipline and in employing its tools in training of executives for the public sector filled the bill for him to be chosen by the Oberoi’s, one of the country’s premier hotel groups as Vice President for Human Resource management. His tenure there was remarkable for the transformational stimulus that it brought into the vital HR functions of the enterprise.

J. Philip’s subsequent choice as the Director of Indian Institute of Management (IIM) in Bangalore in 1985 was assuredly owing to the government’s recognition of his extraordinary calibre as a management educationist with a proven track record in several functional areas of management both as an academic discipline and as an art and profession. And his tenure in that leadership position was marked by the turnaround he accomplished for that institution from a worrisome parenthesis of disarray and organisational drift to restoration of its original stature of globally recognised excellence.

After his retirement from IIM, Bangalore, J. Philip turned his sagacious energies to founding a management institution of his own. Xavier Institute of Management & Entrepreneurship (XIME) in Bangalore was the sentimental fulfilment of the promise of founding a model business school that he had made to his daughter shortly before her death in a tragic accident. It’s establishment in 1991 with his own personal savings as the modest capital base and it’s growth and expansion into impressive additional campuses in Kochi and Chennai in subsequent years testified to his redoubtable but lightly worn leadership and entrepreneurial skills.

His latest educational venture was the trendsetting Xavier International School he established in a rural area in his native Kerala over the last two years, even as he devoted his very last days to plan a university consisting of the three XIME campuses and adding one more in another southern Indian state. Alongside these were his plans to set up a youth development centre in Alleppey, Kerala.

Besides being part of the forward movement of Indian management education over the years, J. Philip was the founder President of Indian Management Schools Association and of the Association of BRICS Business Schools (ABBS). His efforts to promote India as home to the largest annual cohorts of MBAs in the world were manifest in these efforts as well as in the annual international conferences, he used to host at his Institute’s own expense till recently to curate global themes for the benefit of Indian management education community.

The crowning point of his life and career was the honour of Chevalier conferred on him by the Pope in early January this year in recognition of his distinguished service.

In Prof. J. Philip’s passing, India has lost what The Hindu had termed as “Doyen of Indian management education”.

(The author, C.P. Radhakrishnan is a former Indian envoy to several countries and now Chairman, XIME, Kochi.)