Georgia Southern University has chosen Avinandan (Avi) Mukherjee, Ph.D., as its next provost and executive vice president for Academic Affairs. Mukherjee will assume the role on July 1.
Mukherjee has more than 16 years of experience in institutional leadership roles, including provost and chief academic officer of a public, comprehensive research university; dean of two AACSB-accredited colleges of business; and department chair of marketing for an AACSB-accredited school of business. He has served as a full-time faculty member, teaching courses at the undergraduate, MBA, executive MBA, and doctoral levels, in the U.S. and top international universities around the world.
"Dr. Mukherjee’s extensive experience in academic leadership, global perspective and commitment to discovery and innovation make him an outstanding choice to serve as our next provost and executive vice president for Academic Affairs,” said Georgia Southern University President Kyle Marrero. “His vision for academic excellence, research advancement and student success perfectly aligns with Georgia Southern’s values. His leadership will ensure that Georgia Southern reaches its stated goals of graduating career-ready students, advancing the economic development in the region, and elevating our public impact research agenda."
Mukherjee has been the provost and senior vice president for Academic Affairs at Marshall University since 2022, after leading as interim in the same role from 2021 to 2022, where he oversees all academic affairs for nine colleges and two schools, student affairs, research and enrollment management. Prior to this role, he was the dean of the Lewis College of Business at Marshall (2017-2021) where he spearheaded a collaboration with external and internal stakeholders to strategically transform the college.
He has also served as the dean of the College of Business at Clayton State University. For six years, he led the marketing department at Montclair State University in New Jersey as chair, where he played a pivotal role in establishing an interdisciplinary Ph.D. program in environmental management.
“It is a great honor to take on the role of Provost and Executive Vice President at Georgia Southern University, and I do so with great humility and excitement for the possibilities ahead,” said Mukherjee. “Georgia Southern has achieved tremendous momentum under President Kyle Marrero's visionary leadership and I am excited to become a part of this transformative journey.
“I am looking forward to working closely with the Georgia Southern faculty, staff, and students, in collaboration with academic and administrative leaders, to foster a supportive environment that nurtures academic excellence, student success, innovations in teaching and learning, high-impact research and scholarship, strong institutional partnerships, meaningful service to the region, global impact, effective resource utilization, open and constructive dialogue, and a sense of belonging,” he continued. “Higher education today exists in an ever-changing, evolving landscape that requires innovation, adaptability, resilience, and a forward-thinking mindset. I look forward to collaborating with the various Eagle Nation stakeholders to navigate this dynamic landscape together.”
Mukherjee brings a uniquely global perspective to academia, having taught as a full-time or visiting faculty member in nine countries. His academic career includes full-time faculty positions at institutions in the United States (Marshall, Clayton State, Montclair State, Penn State), the United Kingdom (Bradford), Singapore (Nanyang Technological University), and India (Indian Institute of Management). He has also served as visiting faculty at esteemed institutions including Rutgers Business School, New Jersey Institute of Technology, INSEAD, Copenhagen Business School, ESC Toulouse and Kathmandu University.
A tenured professor of marketing and accomplished researcher, Mukherjee’s work has been cited more than 7,000 times with an h-index of 33 and i10-index of 44. He co-authored a scholarly book titled, “An Integrated Approach to Environmental Management,” published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. He has published more than 100 scholarly articles in leading journals such as the Journal of Retailing, Psychology and Marketing; European Journal of Marketing; Journal of Business Research; Journal of the Operational Research Society, Communications of the ACM; Journal of Services Marketing; and, Journal of Marketing Management, among others. He is the founding editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Pharmaceutical and Healthcare Marketing.
In addition, Mukherjee has led executive development programs and consulted for corporations across the U.S., U.K., Denmark, India, China, Bangladesh, Singapore and Malaysia. He was recognized in the 2017 Atlanta Business Chronicle’s Who’s Who in Education.
He has served as the president of the Society for Advancement of Management and the Midwest Business Administration Association. He was a board member for the West Virginia Public Education Collaborative, the Clayton (Atlanta) Chamber of Commerce and the New Jersey Advertising Club. He has also served on various committees with the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities, National Collegiate Athletic Association and the University System of Georgia, including chair of the Regents Academic Advisory Committee on Business Administration, Management and Economics.
Mukherjee earned his doctorate in marketing from the Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad, India. Part of his doctoral work was conducted at the ESSEC Business School in Paris, and his research was affiliated with the International Motor Vehicle Program of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan School of Management. He holds a graduate certificate in higher education administration from the Harvard Graduate School of Education’s Institute for Management and Leadership in Education and a certificate from the Millennium Leadership Initiative from the American Association of State Colleges and Universities. He received a Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering from Jadavpur University in India.
He has also completed the AGB Institute for Leadership and Governance in Higher Education.
