Prof. (Dr.) Zakkariya K. A.

Prof. (Dr.) Zakkariya K. A. is a distinguished academician, institution builder, and Senior Professor of Management at the School of Management Studies (SMS), Cochin University of Science and Technology (CUSAT), Kerala. He serves as the National Vice President of the Indian Society for Training & Development (ISTD), New Delhi (elected August 2026, having previously served as Regional Vice President – South), and is the Founder & Mentor of the ISTD Trichur Diamond Chapter.

With over two decades of academic, research, and administrative leadership, Dr. Zakkariya has served as Director of the School of Management Studies (CUSAT), Founder-Director of the DDU KAUSHAL Kendra (DDUKK) at CUSAT, Director of Students’ Welfare (CUSAT), and Director of the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) Centre at Malappuram. He was nominated three times to the Syndicate of CUSAT by the Government of Kerala—becoming the youngest-ever Syndicate member in 2003—and is the only university professor in Kerala elected six consecutive times to a University Senate.

An internationally recognized researcher and mentor, he played a pivotal role in integrating CUSAT into a multi-million-euro European Union Erasmus+ Capacity Building project in Higher Education and served as a Guest Researcher at Dresden University of Technology (TU Dresden), Germany (2023). He has co-authored over 100 research papers in leading international journals (Emerald, Taylor & Francis, InderScience, and Sage) and has guided numerous Ph.D. scholars in Organizational Behavior, Human Resource Management, Marketing, and Sustainability.

As Founder & Mentor of ISTD Trichur Chapter and National Vice President of ISTD, Prof. (Dr.) Zakkariya K. A. provides institutional guidance, strategic mentorship, and academic–industry linkage for the chapter’s professional learning initiatives, student chapters, and leadership programmes.