Former Rohm & Haas CEO Raj Gupta joins Haas family on a $5M gift to create new Drexel institute

Drexel University alum Raj Gupta has donated $2.5 million as part of a larger $5 million gift that establishes the Raj & Kamla Gupta Governance Institute, the university said Monday.

Gupta, chairman of Aptiv PLC and chairman of Avantor Inc, and his wife Kamla invested $2.5 million to create an institute that will bear their name while the Haas family matched their gift, taking the total donation to $5 million. The Gupta Institute will house Drexel's existing Center for Corporate Governance and its new Center for Nonprofit Governance, "each providing world-renowned business leaders with dynamic governance insights," Drexel said in a release.

The Gupta Institute also named Vanguard chairman Bill McNabb as its first executive-in-residence to encourage collaboration between corporate executives, governance leaders and faculty members. McNabb also served as CEO of the Vanguard Group until December 2017.

In an interview, Gupta said he served on the board of directors of Vanguard for 16 years, before retiring in December at age 72.

"We want the institute to be at the forefront of governance issues for public, private and non-profit industries," said Gupta, who lives in Newtown Square. He earned an MBA from Drexel in 1972.

Gupta joined Rohm and Haas in 1971 as a financial analyst and was ultimately elected to the board of directors and named vice chairman in January 1999, before becoming chairman and chief executive officer in October 1999. He assumed the additional title of president in early 2005. In 2009, Gupta left Rohm and Haas after its $15.3 billion acquisition by the Dow Chemical Company, now owned by DowDuPont.