Mihir Mankad is an outstanding teacher of communications and exceptional global communications expert.  He was specifically selected as a Lecturer of Communications at Fletcher based on his international reputation as a communications expert of the highest caliber, his graduate education and experience in business. I served as the Dean of the Fletcher School of International Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. Mr. Mankad is one of the most impressive educators that I have ever met in my professional career.  As an international expert in media and communication who has risen to the top of his field, he is an outstanding and highly popular Professor at our institution, amongst our top executive education coaches, a capable leader and manager who we have entrusted with leading and reviving our media center, a coach for our senior faculty of effective public communication, and finally a catalyst who has bridged various schools within our university together via original and successful initiatives such as the Fletcher Ideas Exchange.

I have been fortunate to work with many outstanding leaders and individuals in my career to date. I came to the Fletcher School after serving as an Admiral of the United States Navy, as the 15th Commander of the US European Command, and as the Supreme Allied Commander NATO Alliance in Global Operations from 2009 to 2013. I have also served as the Commander of US Southern Command, with responsibility for all military operations in Latin America from 2006-09, and still serve as Chair of the Board for the US Naval Institute. My career in public service was enabled via a degree from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1976, and from Fletcher School itself, where I received a Masters and PhD. 

Fletcher School graduate students include career diplomats, military personnel, international lawyers, and NGO managers from around the world.  The ability to communicate to a diverse, cross-cultural audience is a necessary skill for the future leaders of international affairs.  Mr. Mankad’s course was setting the standard for more peaceable and effective communication amongst individuals from incredibly diverse cultural backgrounds and political beliefs.  As a Professor, he created a comfortable and invigorating learning environment for the students. He carefully plans classroom speaking assignments on an array of relevant communication topics, including but not limited to problem-solution speeches, debates, argument framing, value speeches, and video projects, to give participants the opportunity to cultivate their unique speaking style.

Let me explain his impact. Within two months of teaching his innovative and self-designed new course on public speaking at our institution, it was billed as the “best recent academic innovation at our school” at an all-school town hall meeting for faculty. Not only Fletcher students, but students from neighboring Harvard and Tufts graduate students signed up and filled up a record eleven sections of the course in three years. This past semester, Mr. Mankad was able to bring in noted international guests to speak in his classroom, including a Chief Ministerial front-runner from India Dr. Kiran Bedi, the longtime conductor of the Boston Philharmonic, Benjamin Zander, and a Police Commissioner from New York, Jonathan Murad. I also guest lectured in his course, one of only a few lectures I have given to date. I was impressed with the full house and the energy that Mr. Mankad brings to the class that I saw personally.

Mr. Mankad make a genuine effor to understand each student’s perspective, motivation, and concerns througout his class and through individual coaching sessions with the students. Further, He has demonstrated a special ability to remember specific anecdotes about each student and use that knowlegde to guide each student on a personalized trajectory to develop their public speaking voice.

Collectively, the combination of Mr. Mankad’s effort and ability creates a collaborative environment where students comfortable to not only share their own policy goals and personal value but also a community where they listen and give constructive feedback to other students. Completion of Mr. Mankad’s course creates effective communicators, which in turn contributes to a more cohesive Fletcher community and prepares our graduates to be international leaders in business, policy, and the non-profit sector.

Mr. Mankad is internationally known as a leading global communications and media expert.  His continued work at Tufts is critical in order to help us achieve our goals of assisting the Tufts community with creating lasting media campaigns. Each year on average at Fletcher, I did 200 Video Press Conferences promoting our school and communicating our strategy. Not only is Mr. Mankad’s media skill valuable in the classroom, but also he is critical for us to train our faculty. Several of our faculty members have been at the school for many decades, and Mr. Mankad has gained the reputation and trust from us to train these senior and internationally renowned scholars and diplomats. 

Mr. Mankad developed guidelines for critiquing public speaking skills and original strategies for upskilling our students and faculty members’ communication skills. Our communication office has put up a plan to train the most experienced faculty, and I will partner with Mr. Mankad on this training, as it is absolutely critical for our institution’s strategy going ahead.

Mr. Mankad has contributed to educating individuals all over the world. A few years ago, we had one of our most important and sharpest senior executive education groups – senior diplomats from the Indian Foreign Service (typically consul generals and Ambassadors). We assembled some of our best faculty members (about 15) to coach this group over 2 weeks. At the end of each session, the members filled out a detailed feedback form. Our Senior Associate Dean Deborah Nutter announced that Mr. Mankad’s sessions were objectively the highest rated sessions of all. Subsequent to this training, Mr. Mankad was invited to train the Indian Foreign Service in Delhi itself. Mr. Mankad has also had similar success teaching various other senior executive groups, including our Financial Services Inclusions Fellows, senior Central Bank Officers from a range of Developing Countries around the world, and our GMAP (Global Masters of Arts) program mid-career professionals.

Mihir Mankad became integral member of our school’s fabric, and a great contributor to other schools he taught at.  He is one of the top global communication experts in his field whose teaching has benefitted not only the Fletcher and Harvard University communities, but also the World Bank and other international organizations. Mr. Mankad is a distinguished and gifted public speaker and a natural leader and teacher.