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Leading Global Entrepreneur to Guide Female Business Students During Year-in-Residence at Simmons School of Management
BOSTON (January 18, 2008) - Radha Ramaswami Basu, a veteran Hewlett Packard executive who launched the company’s India operations, became the chairman and chief executive of a successful software company, and broke numerous professional and personal barriers, will share her experiences with MBA students this year as the joint entrepreneur- and executive-in-residence at the Simmons School of Management.
The Simmons School of Management (SOM), which offers the only MBA program in the nation designed specifically for women, brings to its campus leading entrepreneurs and executives for a year-in-residence to provide its students with hands-on learning from highly successful businesswomen.
The India-born Basu, who retired as chairman and chief executive officer of the software company SupportSoft, will use her expertise to guide SOM students in learning a broad range of business leadership and entrepreneurial skills. Basu broke numerous barriers during her life, starting in her teens, when she secretly took an entrance exam to an engineering school and got the highest score, earning a place as one of only 17 girls in a program with 2,700 boys. During the course of her life she would go on to study in the U.S. for master’s degrees in engineering and business, eschew an arranged marriage, and later, trek with her husband to Nepal and Tibet to the base camps of Mount Everest.
Basu began her professional life as an engineer at Hewlett Packard working on ultrasound imaging technologies. In 1985 she founded the company’s operations in Bangalore, India, and by 1989 she was overseeing eight offshore software centers around the world. She eventually rose to general manager of Hewlett Packard’s electronic business software division, which she grew into a $1.5 billion business.
From 1999 to 2006 she ran SupportSoft, a California-based global technology company that makes support automation software, taking it through its initial and secondary public offerings. After retiring from the company, Basu and her husband, Dipak, established the Anudip Foundation to develop humanitarian projects such as Linkage India, which creates livelihoods for rural and marginalized people by establishing training centers in information technology and entrepreneurship.
Basu earned her master’s degree in engineering from the University of Southern California and her Executive MBA from Stanford University.
The Certificate Program in Entrepreneurship at the Simmons School of Management provides hands-on learning and allows students to pursue opportunities in new venture creation, social entrepreneurship, and corporate entrepreneurship. The entrepreneurship program also encompasses undergraduate programming, the annual $10,000 Silverman Business Plan Competition, and exposure to successful women business owners through the school’s Leading Women Entrepreneur Series.
The Simmons School of Management (www.simmons.edu/som) is committed to advancing women of diverse backgrounds into leadership positions. Simmons College (www.simmons.edu) is a nationally recognized private university in Boston.