Honorable Chancellor | Bangladesh Open University

Mr. Md. Abdul Hamid
The Hon'ble President of Bangladesh and

Honorable Chancellor

Bangladesh Open University

Vice Chancellor | Bangladesh Open University

Professor Dr. M A Mannan
Vice Chancellor, Bangladesh Open University

Biography of the Vice Chancellor

Dr. M A Mannan, Professor of Management at the Faculty of Business Studies, University of Dhaka joined as Vice-Chancellor of Bangladesh Open University on 24th March 2013. At Dhaka University, he was the Chairman and Director of MBA Program (Evening) of the Department of Management Studies, Director, Bureau of Business Research, Provost of Zahurul Haque Hall and Senate Member. Dr. Mannan received higher education in Management/Business administration at Dhaka University, Delhi University, Manchester University (UK) and Western Kentucky University (USA). He topped the list in both the SSC and HSC examinations and obtained First Class in all higher-level public examinations. He received the most coveted Commonwealth Senior Staff Fellowship awarded by the Commonwealth Scholarship Commission in the United Kingdom, and the highly prestigious Fulbright Senior Academic Fellowship awarded by the United States International Agency for postdoctoral programs in Britain and USA respectively. During his 38 years of teaching career at the University level, for a few years, he worked as the Director of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Bangladesh (ICAB), and as visiting Resource Person at the ILO International Training Centre, Turin, Italy and as guest lecturer in the MBA program of Delhi University. He also worked with East West University and North South University as adjunct faculty.

He is the founder president of National Management Association, Bangladesh and author of several degree-level popular textbooks including nationally reputed marketing book Biponon Jugey Jugey, Strategic Management and Essentials of Total Quality Management. Two of his books have been published from England/USA (Growth and Development of Small Enterprise), and New Delhi (Workers’ Participation in Management). One co-authored research-based book, Change Management, has been published from South Korea with the assistance of KOICA. He has to his credit over 70 research papers published in refereed journals at home and abroad. Dr. Mannan presented papers and participated in many international conferences/seminars organized by International Conference in Advances in Management (USA & Greece), University of Manchester (UK), IIEP-UNESCO (Paris, France), Association for Management Development Institutions in South Asia (India, Sri Lanka and Nepal), British Council (Srilanka,UAE), Commonwealth of Learning (Nigeria), Qatar Foundation (WISE Summit and Higher Education Leadership Program) etc. He has wide multicultural orientation resulted from his professional visits to USA, UK, Canada, Australia, Netherlands, Germany, Greece, Italy, France, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Hungary, Nigeria, Qatar, Mauritius, Saudi Arabia, , United Arab Emirates, Bhutan, India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, China and South Korea. Several award-winner for high-quality textbook writing and research paper, he was involved as management specialist/consultant, with different national and international organizations such as the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, UNO (headquarters), UNICEF, ILO, UNDP, United Nations Centre on Transnational Corporations, European Commission, Swedish SIDA, Canadian CIDA, Korean International Cooperation Agency (KOICA), Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), World Vision, MSH (USA), Pathfinder International, Save the Children (USA), GoB’s Ministry of Education, Ministry of Primary and Mass Education, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, BCS Administration Academy etc. He worked with the Ministry of Education of Sri Lanka and the Korean International Cooperation Agency (South Korea) as an international consultant. As a management consultant & strategic planner, he worked with several business and not-for-profit organizations for developing their strategic plans, conducting a job analysis, preparing job descriptions and undertaking performance/management audit.

His active interest and initiatives were instrumental in the introduction of the Strategic Management and TQM courses in the MBA programs at Dhaka University and several private universities. He taught these courses at Dhaka University and in some private Universities as adjunct faculty for quite a long time. He has widely lectured in-house and online including television channels and provided consulting services to different business organizations on the issues of TQM, human resource management and strategic management.

Treasurer | Bangladesh Open University

Professor Ashfaque Hossain PhD

Treasurer, Bangladesh Open University

Professor Dr. Ashfaque Hossain joined as the Treasurer of Bangladesh Open University. Earlier he was a Professor at the Department of History in the University of Dhaka, Bangladesh. Dr. Ashfaque Hossain is the leading Economic Historian of the country with extensive experience of conducting research on the economic history of nineteenth and twentieth centuries’ Bengal and South Asia.

Professor Hossain is a highly accomplished scholar, with six books in Bengali as well as several articles in internationally renowned journals, such as Modern Asian Studies and the Journal of Global History published by Cambridge University Press, London School of Economics (LSE) and CCPP (UK).

Professor Ashfaque Hossain was educated at the University of Dhaka and the University of Nottingham, UK. He has a BA (Honours), MA and MPhil degrees in history from the University of Dhaka. The title of his MPhil thesis is ‘the Emergence of Bangladesh and the United Nations’. His MPhil thesis focuses on the multi-layered history of the Liberation War of Bangladesh. Professor Ashfaque Hossain obtained a Ph.D. degree in Economic History from the University of Nottingham, UK and title of his Ph.D. is: ‘Historical Globalization and its Impact: A Study on Sylhet and its People’. His doctoral research focuses on aspects of colonial and post-colonial globalization especially in Sylhet and Assam, its relationship to both local and global political, economic and social forces. Recently, he has examined the maritime activities and emigration of Muslim Sylhetis, from what today is north-eastern Bangladesh.

Professor Ashfaque Hossain is the Founder Director of the Centre for Research on Bangladesh Liberation War (CRBL), University of Dhaka. He is the recipient of various awards and honours. Notable among them are the UGC Research Award 2013 in Arts & Social Science and Justice Ibrahim Memorial Gold Medal for Outstanding Research in Arts & Social Science, University of Dhaka (2012-2013). Professor Ashfaque Hossain has gathered wide professional skills from his visits to USA, UK, Germany, Netherlands and India.

Professor Ashfaque Hossain has been teaching modern Asian, European and American history, colonial Bengal and South Asian history at the University of Dhaka. In the last two decades, as an adjunct faculty, he also taught History of Bangladesh/Bangladesh Studies, History of Capitalism and World Civilizations in North South University, East-West University and BRAC University. Professor Hossain has been an Adjunct Faculty at the Institute of Business Administration (IBA) of University of Dhaka and at Department of History and Philosophy in the North South University. He has supervised a number of MPhil and Ph.D. dissertations in diversified areas of historical knowledge.

Professor Ashfaque Hossain is currently an elected Member of the Senate of the University of Dhaka. He is involved in many professional bodies and is the Life Member of Bangla Academy, Asiatic Society of Bangladesh and Bangladesh History Association. He was an Associate Editor of Bangladesh Asiatic Society Patrika and Bangladesh Historical Studies and Assistant Editor, Banglapedia – the National Encyclopaedia of Bangladesh.

Professor Ashfaque Hossain was born in Moulvibazar (Sylhet) in 1969. Professor Dr. Ashfaque Hossain has married and blessed with one son and one daughter. Professor Dr. Ashfaque Hossain’s wife Ms. Sadia Afroz is a teacher.