By AIT Public Affairs
1 July 2025: Professor Siddharth K. Jabade has been appointed as the Vice President for Administration and Development (VPAD), effective 1 July 2025.
His selection followed a rigorous process that began with a call for applications from 28 October to 31 December 2024. A Selection Committee was established in January 2025 to oversee the recruitment. After careful evaluation and interviews with shortlisted candidates who presented their vision, implementation strategies for the AIT Blueprint, KPIs, and financing plans, the Committee recommended Professor Jabade for the role. His appointment was subsequently approved by the Board of Trustees through a postal ballot.
AIT President Professor Pai-Chi Li welcomed the appointment, expressing confidence in Professor Jabade’s ability to bring energy, insight, and strategic leadership to the role. He also thanked Mr. Russell B. Rein for his dedicated service and meaningful contributions during his term as Vice President for Administration.
Professor Jabade holds a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from IIT Bombay and served as the Founding Vice Chancellor of Vishwakarma University (VU), Pune. With over two decades of leadership in innovation, intellectual property, higher education policy, and institution building, he has transformed VU into a globally recognized institution. Under his leadership, VU received the Times Higher Education (THE) Awards Asia 2023 for Leadership and Management and secured top rankings in the WURI Global Innovation Index.
His achievements in resource mobilization include attracting support from the WILO Foundation (Germany), Tata Autocomp, and a Singapore-based fund to Nanyang Technological University (NTU). He has led strategic partnerships with globally renowned universities, including Penn State, SUNY Binghamton, NTU Singapore, Stanford, KAIST, and Harvard. Notably, he played a key role in establishing the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF)-supported Energy-Smart Electronic Systems Centre in collaboration with SUNY, which led to successful technology spin-offs.
Professor Jabade also shares a long-standing relationship with AIT. From 2009 to 2018, he served as Director of Innovation and IPR at AIT Consulting (now AIT Solutions) and held positions as Affiliated Faculty and Visiting Faculty, where he taught the flagship course “Intellectual Property Rights for Technology Development.”
