Bhaskar Pant

Bhaskar Pant is the Executive Director of MIT Professional Education, the arm of MIT that provides technical professionals a gateway to MIT expertise via education courses and programs designed for them.

Under Bhaskar's leadership, MIT Professional Education has increased substantially its program offerings, corporate relationships and global outreach, engaging professionals in more than 120 countries participating in its on-campus, international and more recently launched online and hybrid programs. Courses addressing cutting edge topics such as big data, artificial intelligence and internet of things, combined with professional development courses in the fields of innovation and entrepreneurship, have benefited thousands of professionals around the globe. Bhaskar served on MIT President’s task force on “The Future of Education at MIT” contributing specifically on the sub-committee addressing “Bringing MIT to the World”. Under a global outreach initiative launched by Bhaskar, MIT Professional Education is offering MIT short courses in increasing international locations in Asia, Latin America, Middle East and Europe.

Prior to joining MIT, Bhaskar held senior leadership positions in academic and corporate organizations around the globe. Most recently, he served as Managing Director, Asia Pacific, for the Educational Testing Service (ETS), the world’s foremost academic testing organization, under which he was responsible for overseeing the company’s English language testing operations for a region extending from Afghanistan to New Zealand. This included the opening of subsidiaries in India and China that administered the TOEIC English proficiency test for engineers and other working professionals.

Previously, Bhaskar led the global corporate training arm of the School for International Training (SIT) in Vermont, addressing the language and cultural training needs of technical professionals working for some of the world’s largest multinational organizations such as ExxonMobil. Prior to that, he held senior management positions at media and media technology companies such as Sony Corporation and Turner Broadcasting/CNN. Bhaskar served as the first President of Turner Broadcasting’s subsidiary in India.

He holds an undergraduate degree in electrical engineering from the University of Rochester and a graduate degree in communications and management from Indiana University in Bloomington. Besides managing MIT Professional Education, Bhaskar teaches intercultural communication to engineering students and professionals at MIT and management students at the Harvard University Extension School.

Articles by Bhaskar include:

• Crossing Cultural Barriers to Achieve Superior Team Results, The European Business Review, March 10, 2017
• Different Cultures See Deadlines Differently, Harvard Business Review, May 23, 2016