• President Global Business Studies (GBS Dubai) since May 2021
• A higher education scholar and administrator with a Ph.D. from the Department of Public Administration, University of Lucknow India
• Associated with many institutions in his academic and leadership career spanning over thirty years
• Worked in various administrative positions such as Dean, Provost, Vice-President, and President.
• on the panel of visiting professors, with many institutions including the Institute for Tourism Studies, Macau.

As an academic administrator, Dr. Amitabh Upadhya is a recognized planner and executor having strength in strategic planning, academic operations, marketing & promotion, national & international accreditations, quality assurance, and institutional effectiveness.

Institutional licensure, academic accreditation, and compliance processes, documentation, and audit are the forte of Dr. Amitabh Upadhya having successfully gone through the exercise of review and implementation of the UAE Ministry of Education – Commission of Academic Accreditation (MOE-CAA) Standards many times, and also the vocational institution requirements of Dubai Knowledge and Human Development Authority (KHDA).

Dr. Amitabh has Upadhya also been actively involved in consultancy projects and the design, development & conduct of vocational and training programs.

Widely published in journals and periodicals, with over fifty highly cited peer-reviewed publications and two books, Dr. Amitabh sits on the editorial boards of several prestigious academic journals and is a regular reviewer for SCOPUS and ADCB-ranked journals, amongst many others.

Dr. Amitabh is a regular invitee as keynote and lead speaker to national and international conferences, in the area of his expertise. He has been involved in various consultancy projects that also include the Sharjah Commerce and Tourism Development Authority’s (SCTDA) prestigious Marhabtain program in 2018 and UAE National Qualification Authority’s (NQA) standardization program for tourism and marketing courses in 2016-17.

Dr. Amitabh has been a regular contributor to general-interest periodicals such as Forbes Middle East, education-specific publications such as Higher Education Digest, and News Dailies such as Gulf News, Khaleej Times, and the National. His latest Gulf News article, ‘Higher Education Needs a More Holistic Approach’, generated quite a wide-ranging interest.

His recent area of academic interest has been industry-academia collaboration for improving the effectiveness of higher education and making it more relevant, in this fast-paced era of natural and professional disruptions and change.

• Recognized with the ‘Academic Leadership Award of the Skyline University College Sharjah in 2008 for his leadership role
• ‘Education Leadership Award’ of the World Sustainability Congress Dubai in 2018 Professor Amitabh Upadhya joined Global Business Studies GBS Dubai, in May 2021 as President.