Dr. Ashwin Fernandes is the Executive Director for Africa, Middle East, and South Asia at QS Quacquarelli Symonds – the world's largest international education network. He works closely with institutions across the regions to better understand the local context and to support the drive for excellence and capacity building.
Dr Ashwin Fernandes is known as an ambassador of the quality movement in education and has advocated the need for independent evaluation mechanisms for promoting excellence. He actively advocates the use of rankings, accreditation and other QA models for various purposes, be it for students aspiring for higher education in reputed institutions across the globe or government agencies looking to have their universities compete globally or academics looking for partners focused on research initiatives.
Dr Fernandes has authored the book titled “India’s Knowledge Supremacy: The New Dawn”, which is a thought-provoking perspective on the evolution of higher education in India, since ancient times to now. It was released by Shri Dharmendra Pradhan, Hon’ble Union Minister of Education for India in January 2023.
During his professional engagement, he has met with senior leaders from the region and is often invited to speak at several conferences and events on university rankings, ratings, education, higher education etc. He has been a panellist on various discussion forums and presented his recommendations on thought provoking topics related to higher education.
Dr Fernandes championed the need for an independent rankings framework for the Arab Region and hence was instrumental in developing the QS Arab Region University Rankings in 2014/15. He also founded India’s first nationwide private sector evaluation framework called QS I-GAUGE.
He has a Doctorate of Philosophy (PhD) along with an MBA in Marketing and a B.Com degree in Financial Accounting, Auditing & Taxation. He has lived and worked in 5 countries and visited over 300 educational institutions in his 12 years at QS.
