With the new academic year 2004-05, Fr. N. Casimir Raj, SJ, has taken charge as XLRI's new Director after Fr. P. D. Thomas retired at the end of a ten-year stint. Meanwhile, Dr. Pingali Venugopal has succeeded Dr. E. M. Rao as Dean (Academics), XLRI Jamshedpur. Fr. Casimir Raj will also be the Vice Chairman of the Board of Governors of XLRI Jamshedpur.

"One of our core areas of focus would be on building up on the one core value that makes XLRI stand out from the rest of the B-Schools - the family-like atmosphere of togetherness and camaraderie," says Dr. Venugopal. This would be in addition to the number of new Academic, Research and Exchange Programme initiatives that are in the offing.

About Fr. Casimir Raj

Fr. Casimir Raj has been teaching Marketing for the past 30 years in various institutions including XLRI Jamshedpur; St. Luis University, Missouri; Wheeling Jesuit College, Wheeling and XIM Bhubaneshwar. He was the founder Director of LIBA and Principal of Loyola College, Chennai. He was also Director, XIM Bhubaneshwar. A member of the American Marketing Association and a PhD from St. Louis University, USA, Fr. Casimir is widely regarded to be an authority in Marketing with numerous publications to his credit.

About Dr. Pingali Venugopal

Dr. Venugopal is a Professor of Marketing at XLRI and a visiting faculty at IIM Ahmedabad, IIM Lucknow and XIM Bhubaneshwar. His areas of interest include Marketing Research and Distribution Management. His book, "Marketing Channel Management: A Customer-Centric Approach" published by Response Books is highly popular. He has conducted several Management Development and In-company Training Programmes on Marketing topics. He has regularly been publishing papers in national and international journals.

The XLRI Board of Governors, which has appointed the new Director, is headed by Mr. B. Muthuraman, Managing Director, Tata Steel. The members of the Board include the Chairmen of Boston Consulting Group, ITC Limited, NICCO Corp Ltd, State Bank of India, Usha Martin Group, the Directors of IIT Kharagpur, XIM Bhubaneswar, Managing Directors of BOC India Ltd, Tinplate Company of India Ltd, Country Manager of Timken India Ltd, Dean A & F of XIM B, President, Jamshedpur Jesuit Society, Principal, St Xavier's College, Ranchi, the PS to the Chief Minister of Jharkhand and Most Rev Felix Toppo, Bishop.