Dr Sumita Rai is currently the Dean - Industry Connect, Alumni and a Professor of Organizational Behaviour with MDI (Management Development Institute), Gurgaon India.  She is a Ph.D. from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Kanpur, India.  She led various positions at MDI viz Chairperson of FPM(Doctoral) program, Postgraduate HRM program, Counselling Chair and Area Chair of OB group in the past.
She serves as an Independent Director of three Indian companies.

Dr Rai was a member of the Advisory Board for the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, at the University of Szeged, Hungary 2023-2025. Currently she is on international advisory board EDC Paris Business school France.

Dr. Rai is actively involved in research at the national and international level that focuses on Effective Leadership, Employee Motivation/Wellbeing, Organizational Justice and Employee Mental Health.  She co-authored the acclaimed book “Millennials and the Workplace: Challenges for Architecting the Organization of Tomorrow” which was published by Sage in May 2012. She has authored several cases, that are with and Harvard Business School publication. Her cases have been among the first best seller cases in OB and Leadership with Ivey publishing Canada and ACRC Hongkong.

She has participated in various international conferences hosted in countries like Japan, France, Germany, Italy, Denmark, Singapore, China, Bangkok, US and Hong Kong.

She has successfully delivered Consulting assignments for top Public¸ Private¸ and Global MNCs. A few of the prominent clientele are Power Grid Corporation of India Ltd, Petronet - LNG, BHEL, ABN-AMRO Bank, Nestle India Ltd, DLF senior level leadership Individual Development Plan, Plasser India Pvt. Ltd, Edunet pvt. Ltd in the area of Strategic Leadership and Capacity Building, Coaching and Mentoring.

Prof. Sumita Rai architects and leads Leadership Development & Advanced Management for Officers of the Indian Government and Corporate Leadership. Many senior Civil Services officers from IAS/IPS/IRS cadres, decorated defence officers from Indian Defence Services, managers and leaders of Public Sector Banks / Public Sector Enterprises and professionals from MNCs have benefited from her tutelage. Her programs focus on Competency Mapping & Profiling; Understanding Self, Managerial Effectiveness, Negotiation Skills and Conflict Management, Team building, Cross-cultural training and understanding diverse personality traits. She is a certified Gallup and Erikson Accredited Coach and certified trainer of MBTI, FIRO-B, Strong Inventory CPP Asia Pacific, and Hogan assessment of USA.

Before working at MDI, Dr Sumita Rai was a member of the faculty of the Human Resource Group at the Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Indore and Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Lucknow. She has also taught at BEM/Kedge Management School, in France and University of Szeged, Hungary.