Education
ESCP Business School names Marie Taillard as UK dean amid London push
LONDON: ESCP Business School has appointed Professor Marie Taillard as dean of its London campus, effective December 19, 2025, as the institution sharpens its expansion and academic ambitions in the UK.
Taillard, who previously served as interim dean, will take on the role for a three-year term. Her appointment comes as ESCP seeks to strengthen its position in London and expand its academic, industry and societal engagement across the UK.
ESCP Business School executive president and dean Leon Laulusa, said Taillard’s expertise in creativity and marketing, combined with her long association with the institution, made her well placed to shape the campus’s next phase. He credited her with launching the MSc in Marketing & Creativity, now one of the school’s flagship programmes.
ESCP London chairman of the board of trustees Lord David Gold, said Taillard would build on the campus’s recent momentum, citing her academic leadership and international outlook.
A L’Oréal professor of creativity marketing and former UK head of faculty, Taillard has been central to ESCP’s push for innovative pedagogy that bridges academic research and professional practice. She was recently shortlisted for the Times Higher Education’s Most Innovative Teacher of the Year award.
Taillard said her focus would be on expanding the programme portfolio, strengthening lifelong learning and deepening links between academia, industry and local communities, aligned with ESCP’s Bold & United strategy.
She holds an MBA from Columbia Business School and a PhD from the University of London, and has held several senior leadership roles at ESCP since joining its permanent faculty in 2007. The London campus currently serves more than 1,900 students and executive participants each year and is ranked second in the UK by the Financial Times.
Education
Scaler appoints new heads for its online and offline businesses
Amar Srivastava becomes chief executive of the online business and group chief product officer; Vidit Jain takes charge of the offline schools
BENGALURU: Scaler is shuffling its top deck as the AI skilling race heats up. The Bengaluru-based tech education company has elevated two senior executives to lead its online and offline businesses, signalling a sharper push into an AI-driven market.
Amar Srivastava, previously senior vice president for product and business, has been appointed chief executive of the online business and group chief product officer. Vidit Jain has been elevated to senior vice president and head of Scaler School, taking charge of the company’s offline education units, the Scaler School of Business and the Scaler School of Technology.
The company has also recently appointed Ratnakar Reddy as head of enterprise for India and the Middle East and North Africa, with a brief to drive partnerships with governments and enterprises for AI-led skilling programmes.
Abhimanyu Saxena, co-founder of Scaler, said the promotions reflect the company’s confidence in both leaders and the direction it is heading. “Amar and Vidit have been central to Scaler’s journey, and their elevations reflect our conviction in their leadership and the direction we are shaping as a company,” he said. “With leadership now in place across the business, we remain focused on building engineers the world’s best companies want to hire. In an AI-first economy, that mission is more urgent and more achievable than ever. Our next chapter is centred on building an AI-native workforce from India, equipped to compete in a technology-driven global economy.”
Srivastava brings over a decade of experience building education-focused ventures. He previously founded Intellify and was part of the early team at Doubtnut. At Scaler, he will lead the online business with a focus on growth, profitability and expansion into new segments, while strengthening the product ecosystem across the group. He is blunt about what the AI economy actually needs. “The AI economy does not have a shortage of tools. It has a shortage of engineers who can think clearly, build reliably, and keep learning as the ground shifts. That is what we are building toward,” he said.
Jain brings more than 15 years of experience across startups and consulting, including stints at MPL and McKinsey and Company. He will oversee growth and profitability of Scaler’s offline business. His priorities are immediate and unambiguous. “The offline experience is where depth gets built, and that depth is critical in the AI era. Over the next 12 months, our focus will be on consistent growth, stronger unit economics, and delivering outcomes for students while building long-term employer partnerships,” he said.
Founded in 2019, Scaler is valued at $710 million and backed by Peak XV Partners, Tiger Global and Lightrock India. Its parent firm, InterviewBit, has featured on the Financial Times’ Asia Pacific High Growth Companies rankings every year from 2021 to 2025. On average, Scaler’s learners see a 4.5x return on investment and a salary increase of around 126 per cent.
With leadership locked in across every business unit, Scaler is betting that the next wave of global tech hiring will be won or lost on the quality of engineers coming out of India. It is a big bet. But the numbers, and the promotions, suggest the company is in no mood to hedge.
