Kavasseri V. Ramanathan

Professor and Former Chairman of Accounting
University of Washington Business School
Seattle, WA 98195

PhD Northwestern University 1970
MBA Northwestern University 1962
B Com Calcutta University 1954
FICWA, Fellow of the Institute of Cost and Works Accountants of India, 1958

PHONE: 425 481 8703
EMAIL: kramnath@u.washington.edu

Dr. Kavasseri V. Ramanathan, Professor Emeritus and former Chairman of Accounting, University of Washington Business School, is an internationally recognized expert in the application of accounting and financial strategies for shareholder value based organizational planning and control. Over the past four decades, he has conducted a variety of executive seminars and in-company management development programs, in the United States and abroad, to help companies enhance their organizational performance.

Professor Ramanathan served as Chairman of the UW Department of Accounting during 2002-05. Under his leadership, the two UW Masters Programs in Accounting were transformed into successful self-sustaining programs with national visibility. Also, in 2005, the Department organized the first Annual Financial Reporting Conference in Seattle.

Dr. Ramanathan was the founder and past Chairman of the University of Washington’s Executive MBA Program, and has taught at Harvard Business School, Northwestern University, New York University, and the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. As an invited speaker, he has lectured in seminars organized by leading academic and professional institutions in the United States, Canada, Europe, Russia, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, Australia, and New Zealand.

In January 2006, The Institute of Cost and Works Accountants of India, New Delhi honored Professor Ramanathan by permanently placing his name on its Center for Excellence in Management and Cost Accounting that he was invited to formally inaugurate. In 1992, he was honored as the inaugural Arthur Andersen Visiting Professor at the University of Auckland in recognition of the influence of his ideas on the New Zealand public sector management process. In late 1990’s, he served the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants as a member of its Task Force on the Role of Non financial Measures of Performance. Among his other major recognitions are the MBA Outstanding Professor of the Year Award and the Fulbright Scholarship.

Professor Ramanathan's leadership contributions include the development and launching, in the mid-1980s, of the University of Washington's highly successful Executive MBA program. In the 1980’s, he co-developed a management program in the UW School of Social Work. In the 1990’s, as Director of Russian Programs, he led the UW Business School initiatives to collaborate with Russian institutions to strengthen their managerial training programs. In the early 1960s, he was part of the lead faculty team that organized India’s first MBA curriculum at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad in collaboration with the Harvard Business School.

Professor Ramanathan earned his MBA and PhD degrees from the Northwestern University and his B.Com degree from the Calcutta University. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Cost and Works Accountants of India. He has published in the leading journals in his field in the United States, Canada, Japan, India, and the United Kingdom. His major publications include Accounting for Managerial Decision Making and Management Control in Nonprofit Organizations, both published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York.

Among his civic contributions are his leadership in founding and serving as the Chairman of the Hindu Temple and Cultural Center (HTCC) in Seattle. He has served as President of Ragamala, a Seattle institution that sponsors Indian artists’ performance in the US, and as a Director of Arsha Vidya Pitham, an Institution devoted to advanced studies in Indian philosophy and Sanskrit. Since summer 1994, Professor Ramanathan has been leading Sunday seminars for the study of Vedanta scriptures.