Prof SSS Kumar, of The Indian Institute of Management, Kozhikode (IIMK) has been appointed CAT (The Common Admission Test) Convenor for 2012. Prof Kumar who teaches Finance, Accounting and Control is from Guntur, Andhra Pradesh and joined IIMK in 2003.

The news was confirmed by an official from IIMK, though Prof Kumar was unavailable for comment.

An MBA from S.V. University, Prof Kumar worked in the industry for two years before sifting to academics in 1998. Before IIMK, Prof Kumar was a lecturer in ISM Dhanbad and earned his doctorate from Indian School of Mines Dhanbad. One of the more talked about papers written by this finance professor is on the subject of reforms in the Indian market, in which he discussed the introduction of "issuing shares through the book building process which finally aims at efficient price discovery."

While it is not confirmed but sources within the CAT camp say that no changes have been planned for CAT 2012 as yet. Some changes that former CAT convenors discussed when in office, included multiple CAT attempts and taking CAT offshore. Whether Prof Kumar pushes for the changes is yet to be seen. Prof Himanshu Rai from IIM Lucknow who was CAT Convenor for 2010 had discussed these ideas in a big way when he was in charge. "These changes will be good for CAT and should happen. However I envisaged these changes to happen only in 2013, a good five years since the exam went online in 2009. The online exam needs to stabilise before big changes are made."

Prof Rai said that taking CAT overseas as well as permitting multiple attempts like in GMAT require solid ground work and only when that is done can changes be implemented.

When asked what advice he would like to give the new CAT convenor, Prof Rai said that all efforts should be in the direction of making this year's exam as glitch-free as the previous two years. "The attitude should be firm and not clouded by the success of the last two years."

CAT 2011 had witnessed a major shift in the pattern. The traditional three sections were reduced to two and both the sections were timed to 70 minutes each. Another change was that candidates could not move to and fro between the sections.