Dr Naushad Forbes is Co-Chairperson of Forbes Marshall, India’s leading process and energy efficiency company. He is also the Chairman, Ananta Aspen Centre, and Centre for Technology, Innovation and Economic Research (CTIER).

Naushad was an occasional teacher at Stanford University from 1987 to 2004 where he developed courses on Technology in Newly Industrialising Countries. He received his Bachelor’s, Master’s, and PhD Degrees from Stanford.

Naushad is on the board of several educational institutions and public companies. He has long been an active member of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and currently chairs the CII National Committee on Technology, Innovation & Research, CII National Committee on Intellectual Property and the CII National Higher Education Committee. He was the president of CII for 2016 – 17. He is a founding member of Nayanta University.

Naushad’s book, The Struggle and the Promise: Restoring India’s Potential, was published by HarperCollins in 2022.

Dr Ranjan Banerjee is the Vice Chancellor and Professor at Nayanta University. He was previously the Dean of SP Jain Institute of Management and Research (SPJIMR) and BITS School of Management (BITSoM). Prior to joining SPJIMR, he was the Founder-CEO of Renaissance Strategic Consultants and has also worked with leading FMCG companies like Asian Paints, Vadilal, and Hindustan Unilever.

Ranjan has co-authored a best-selling book with R Gopalakrishnan, titled The Made in India Manager (2018). His research has been presented at Harvard Business School, University of Michigan, HEC Paris, and Macquarie University, among others. His work has been published in leading journals such as Harvard Business Review, Psychology and Marketing, and Economic and Political Weekly.

He was awarded the IAC Award for the “Change Maestro and Institution Builder of the Year”. He has also been nominated on the global boards of the Graduate Management Council and the Principles of Responsible Management Education (an initiative that is supported by the UN). He is the only nominee from Indian academia on both these boards.

Ranjan holds a PhD from the Carlson School of Management.

Dr D Parthasarathy is the Dean, Office of Academics and Professor at Nayanta University. He comes with extensive experience in higher education, research, and consulting. Prior to this role, he was at IIT Bombay, where he served as a Professor and Head in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences. He was also a founding member of the Ashank Desai Centre for Policy Studies, and the Centre for Climate Studies, which he also served as the Convener.

Professor Parthasarathy’s teaching and research specialisations include development studies, policy studies, climate change, disaster governance, gender, and urban studies.

He has supervised around 25 PhD dissertations and over 40 Master’s theses. He has authored or co-edited four books, over a 100 articles in leading journals, and presented around 150 conference papers. He has worked with national and state governments, think tanks, research agencies and NGOs on projects, with multidisciplinary teams from South Asia, Europe, North America and Australia on problems related to sustainability, climate change, gender and development, disaster governance, malnutrition, and transdisciplinarity.

Aniha Brar has over 25 years of experience in education, communications, and media. She was a part of the founding team of the Young India Fellowship and played a central role in shaping Ashoka University.

Currently, she serves as the Dean of Students and Undergraduate Programme at Nayanta University. Prior to joining Nayanta she was the Dean of the Young India Fellowship and Vice Chancellor’s Office at Ashoka, where she oversaw strategic initiatives, student affairs, and academic governance. She also helped shape the Writing programme at the Young India Fellowship and has taught Critical Writing.

Aniha has previously worked as a television producer, during which she produced award-winning content for channels such as ESPN and Sony Entertainment. She has also edited and written for publications.

Ashish Gupta is a graduate in Computer Science from IIT Kanpur (1983-87) and an MBA from IIM Calcutta (1987-89).

After completing his post-graduation, he joined the Indian Police Service (IPS) in 1989 and was allotted the Uttar Pradesh cadre. He held leadership positions in the police in various capacities. He was committed to build a humane, well-trained, and service-oriented police force.

He served as a senior faculty member in the SVP National Police Academy, Hyderabad where the newly inducted IPS officers are trained and in-service training programmes are conducted for all IPS officers across the country. He also served as the Director in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), looking after policy matters related to energy and internal security.

With his background in technology and security, Ashish was picked up to build the National Intelligence Grid (NATGRID), an IT framework set up for Big Data Analytics and AI to counter terror and maintain national security. He headed the organisation as the CEO.

He was also posted with the Border Security Force handling Anti-Naxal Operations in Chhattisgarh and Odisha. He led the Indian Contingent to the United Nations Peacekeeping Mission in Kosovo in 2000-2002 as the Contingent Commander.

He is the recipient of the President’s Police Medal for Distinguished Services, Police Medal for Meritorious Service, Special Police Medal for Difficult Areas and the UN Peacekeeping Medal. Ashish took Voluntary Retirement from Service on June 10, 2025 from the rank of Director General of Police to join as the Dean and Professor of Practice at Nayanta University.

AF Mathew is a Professor of Humanities and Liberal Arts at the Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Kozhikode. He holds a PhD in Sociology from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, a Pre-PhD from the same institution, an MA in Communications and Journalism, and a Film Appreciation course certificate from the National Film Archive of India (NFAI) and FTII.

Before his tenure at IIM Kozhikode, Prof Mathew was an Associate Professor and Assistant Professor of Media Studies at the Mudra Institute of Communications (MICA), Ahmedabad. He also served as an Assistant Professor of Media Studies at the Manipal Institute of Communications.

Prof Mathew’s contributions extend to his roles as Chairperson of International Exchange and Placements Committees, and Area Chairperson for Humanities and Liberal Arts at IIM Kozhikode.

Dr Ajay Shah studied at IIT, Bombay and USC, Los Angeles. He has held positions at Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), Indira Gandhi Institute for Development Research (IGIDR), Department of Economic Affairs at the Ministry of Finance and National Institute for Public Finance and Policy (NIPFP).

His research is at the intersection of economics, law, and public administration. Dr Shah’s second book, co-authored with Vijay Kelkar, In Service of the Republic: The Art and Science of Economic Policy, featured in Bloomberg’s global “2020 Best Books on Business and Leadership”. He is also the founder and chief editor of The Leap Blog, a place for original work in law, economics, and policy.

Dr. A.K. Shiva Kumar teaches development economics and public policy at Ashoka University, Harvard Kennedy School, and the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad. Specialising in poverty, human development, social sector analysis, and policies impacting children and women, he works as a policy advisor and evaluator based in Delhi. His expertise covers health, nutrition, education, and rights of women and children.

He has evaluated projects for UNDP, UNICEF, and WFP, and co-chairs the Independent Advisory Board of FCDO’s What Works to End Violence: Impact at Scale Programme. A former advisor to UNICEF India and Director of the International Centre for Human Development, he has contributed to numerous global and national human development reports. He is also a co-editor of four Oxford books: Readings in Human Development (2003), Handbook of Population and Development in India (2010), India’s Children: Essays on Social Policy (2015), and Protecting the World’s Children: Public Health, Human Right, Capability (2025).

Anandhi is a seasoned nonprofit leader with over 25 years of experience driving systemic impact across education, child welfare, and organisational development. She brings deep expertise in scaling programs, forging strategic partnerships, and building values-aligned teams that consistently deliver measurable social outcomes.

As the former CEO of Catalysts for Social Action (CSA), Anandhi led a transformative phase that tripled the organisation’s reach, deepened collaborations with government and corporate partners, and institutionalised programmes that support over 5,000 orphaned and vulnerable children annually. In previous leadership roles with The Akanksha Foundation and Akshara Foundation, she oversaw large-scale education initiatives, optimised school operations, and strengthened public systems to improve learning outcomes and expand access for underserved communities. Her skill set spans strategic planning, operations, fundraising, policy advocacy, and team development.

Dr Anjini Kochar is a 3ie Senior Research Fellow. She served as Director of the India Program at the Stanford Center on Global Poverty and Development from 2000 to 2019. Prior to joining the Stanford Center on Global Poverty and Development, she was an Assistant Professor in the Department of Economics at Stanford University.

Kochar received her PhD in Economics from the University of Chicago and holds a Masters in International Relations also from the University of Chicago. She is a past recipient of a Sloan Foundation Fellowship, a McNamara Faculty Fellowship and was a National Fellow at the Hoover Institution in 2000-01.

Her research focuses on the micro-economics of development, and specifically on issues related to education, health, credit, population, inequality and gender. Her research has been published in leading journals, including the American Economic Review and the Journal of Political Economy.

A distinguished global expert in coaching and organisational development, Dr Bajpai will closely guide our undergraduate founding class, through the personal development programme (𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑁𝑎𝑦𝑎𝑛𝑡𝑎 𝐶𝑜𝑚𝑝𝑎𝑠𝑠), corporate immersions and work in a leadership role within the continuing education setup.

Dr Bajpai’s career spans over 30 years across three industries, and 30 countries, with senior leadership roles in sales, marketing, and general management at global powerhouses like PepsiCo, Vodafone, and Marico Limited. He was recently honoured as a Distinguished Alumnus by XLRI Jamshedpur (in 2024).

He is an accredited EMCC Global Senior Practitioner who holds a doctorate in Coaching & Mentoring from Oxford Brookes University, a unique distinction in India. He also holds a coaching diploma from the University of Cambridge, and an MSc in executive coaching from Hult Ashridge Executive Education. Having coached over 500 clients for over fifteen years across Asia, Europe, and Africa, his experience bridges corporate leadership with personal development.
His commitment to giving back is exemplified by his role as a pro bono coach for many international coaching programs and being an advisory mentor for the prestigious Queen’s Young Leaders program, supporting professionals from commonwealth nations between 2016-19. Furthermore, he is the author of an upcoming book, Coaching in the Digital Age – a Practical Guide, to be published by Routledge-UK in early 2026.

Having lived in 14 cities across 3 continents, Dr Bajpai remains passionate about exploring the world (57 countries and counting), wildlife conservation, coaching research, writing and developing talent.

With a career dedicated to developing young talent, his expertise in coaching will provide our students with the guidance to transform their potential into purpose and navigate their professional journeys with confidence.

Dr Danish Hamid, Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Nayanta University, specialises in moral and political philosophy, with a focus on Indian political thought and the intersections of religion, community, and democratic theory. He received his PhD in Philosophy from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay and a law degree from Symbiosis Law School, Pune. His doctoral research examined Dr B. R. Ambedkar’s moral and political philosophy through the lens of John Dewey’s pragmatism and modern natural law ethics.

Dr Hamid’s teaching and research interests bridge Western and Indian traditions, and as a comparativist, he brings together thinkers from the Global South alongside canonical figures of the Western philosophical tradition. His current research focuses on the classical American pragmatists, i.e. Peirce, James, Dewey, and Royce, and reads them in dialogue with 20th-century Indian thinkers such as Gandhi, Ambedkar, Roy, and Iqbal, exploring topics as diverse as the ethics of belief, civil religion, and conceptions of community.

His academic achievements include the 𝗝𝗼𝗵𝗻 𝗗𝗲𝘄𝗲𝘆 𝗦𝗼𝗰𝗶𝗲𝘁𝘆 𝗢𝘂𝘁𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗚𝗿𝗮𝗱𝘂𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗦𝘁𝘂𝗱𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗣𝗮𝗽𝗲𝗿 𝗔𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗱 (2020). Beyond academia, Dr Hamid actively engages in public philosophy through writings that connect classical ideas with contemporary sociopolitical questions.

In addition to teaching, Dr Hamid has been a long-time translator and editor. Before joining Nayanta, he led for many years a translation and research team at his firm, 𝗦𝗼𝗽𝗵𝗶𝘀𝘁 𝗧𝗿𝗮𝗻𝘀𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗦𝗼𝗹𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀, producing academic translations in collaboration with international centres of learning.

Dr Dinesh Mehta has been a Colorado School of Mines faculty since 2000, where he is currently serving as Professor of Computer Science. He received degrees in Computer Science from the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, the University of Minnesota and the University of Florida. He was a Visiting Professor at Intel’s Strategic CAD Labs and at TCS Research.

Dr Mehta’s research interests and publications are in algorithms and data structures, which he has applied to problems arising in VLSI design automation, mobile computing, computational materials, cheminformatics, and network science. At Mines, he teaches the required undergraduate course on CSCI 406 Algorithms. He is a co-author of the text Fundamentals of Data Structures in C++, co-editor of the Handbook of Data Structures and Applications and the Handbook of Algorithms for Physical Design Automation. He is also a former Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems-I and currently serves as Associate Editor for ACM Computing Surveys.

At Mines, Dr Mehta serves as Associate Director of the ORwE (Operations Research with Engineering) PhD program. He has served on the Mines Faculty Senate (including as Senate president). He was also an Assistant Department Head and Interim Department Head in the former Department of Mathematical and Computer Sciences. More recently, he has chaired the Mines Handbook Committee and the University Promotion and Tenure Committee.

Dinyar Patel holds a PhD in modern South Asian history from Harvard University and a BA in international relations from Stanford University. He is the author of Naoroji: Pioneer of Indian Nationalism (Harvard University Press, 2020), a biography of Dadabhai Naoroji, which was the recipient of the 2021 Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay Book Prize awarded by the New India Foundation.

Patel has co-edited two volumes, and his articles have been published in BBC News, Foreign Affairs, The Atlantic, Scroll.in, The Hindu, The Indian Express, and The New York Times (online).

Prof Leena Chatterjee completed her graduation and Master’s in Psychology from Delhi University and her PhD in Organisational Psychology from IIT Kanpur. She joined the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta in 1984 and superannuated as a Professor in the Organisational Behaviour Area in June 2021. She taught courses on Managing Self, Understanding People, Managing Interpersonal Relationships and Team Dynamics, and Leadership, at the Institute. She was presented the Best Teacher Award by the Institute’s alumni and students over several years.

Prof Chatterjee has guided several doctoral students. Her current research interests and publications are in the areas of managing organisational diversity, career choices,
and career management. She has undertaken a large number of in-company training and consultancy assignments for public and private sector organisations as well as international aid organizations.

Currently, she is a Professor of Organisational Behaviour at BITSoM, the BITS School of Management in Mumbai, which is a new global business school launched under the aegis of BITS Pilani, an institute of national eminence recognised by the Government of India.

Manish is a corporate trainer in Systems Thinking and Design Thinking. He is also a visiting faculty at IIMs and other business schools.

Manish led the infrastructure advisory practice for PwC India and has 20 years experience in the infrastructure sector, particularly in enabling private sector participation in infrastructure. He has a B.E (Hons) from the Birla Institute of Technology and Science and PGDM from IIM, Calcutta. He has worked on large PPP projects across sectors including roads, metro, waste, water, airports, ports and power.

Manish has to his credit several World Bank Papers and articles in leading trade publications like Project Finance International and India Infrastructure through which he has been sharing his PPP insights and views on policies to promote infrastructure development.

Prof Nimmi Rangaswamy is a Professor at the Kohli Centre on Intelligent Systems, Indian Institute of Information Technology (IIIT), Hyderabad. She approaches the impacts of AI research and praxis from an anthropological perspective.

Previously, she served as an Adjunct Professor at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Hyderabad from 2013 to 2023, where her courses focused on the intersections of society and technology.

She is currently the Chair of the Advisory Board for the United Nations University, Macau. Her past experience includes her role as a Senior Research Scientist and Lead of the Human Interactions research area at the Xerox Research Center India, where she contributed to developing technologies in consumer-centric healthcare and urban mobility.

Before that, her work at Microsoft Research combined theoretical analysis with ethnographic field research to understand technology use in developing countries. This involved studying patterns of technology adoption in various social contexts and spaces across India, including middle-class consumption of domestic media, the business models of cyber cafés, and the use of mobile internet and Facebook among urban slum youth.

Prof Niranjan Thatte is a leading astrophysicist known for his pioneering work in advanced spectroscopic instrumentation and the study of exoplanets, black holes, and active galactic nuclei. A Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Oxford, he has directed several major international instrumentation projects, including serving for over a decade as Principal Investigator of HARMONI, the first-light spectrograph for the European Extremely Large Telescope. His leadership has guided large multidisciplinary teams across Europe and secured substantial research funding to advance next-generation telescope technologies.

Prof Thatte’s research spans adaptive-optics-assisted integral field spectroscopy, direct detection of exoplanets, and the dynamics of galactic nuclei. He has authored more than 70 referred papers and over 200 instrumentation publications. His academic path includes a PhD in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from UC Berkeley, and he has previously held senior roles at the Max-Planck-Institut für extraterrestrische Physik in Germany. He has taught A level Physics and Maths to students from under-privileged backgrounds at Lady Margaret Hall’s Foundation Year programme and also involved in outreach and widening access initiatives for undergraduates in Physics. Beyond research, Prof Thatte has contributed extensively to scientific leadership, equality and diversity initiatives, and graduate and undergraduate teaching. His career honours include the Marie Curie Excellence Grant and the President of India Gold Medal.

Prof Om Narasimhan focuses his research on entrepreneurship in emerging markets, innovation, pricing strategy, and channels of distribution. He earned his PhD in marketing at the University of Southern California and was the Board of Overseers Chaired Professor of Marketing at the Carlson School of Management, University of Minnesota, prior to joining LSE in 2012. 

He has published articles in leading journals such as Marketing Science, Journal of Marketing Research, and Journal of Marketing. He also won SIG Best Paper awards from the American Marketing Association twice and has been named a finalist for the John D. Little award for the best paper in Marketing Science. 

Prof Narasimhan has been named a Marketing Science Institute Young Scholar. He has also won the Outstanding Researcher of the year award and been named the Best Elective MBA Professor of the year, both at the Carlson School of Management. He has taught courses on entrepreneurship, innovation, pricing, and marketing strategy to executives from companies such as 3M, Target, Hormel Foods, Blue Cross/Blue Shield and Samsung. He currently teaches on the Master’s in Management and the Global Executive Master’s in Management programs at the LSE.

Ramesh Mangaleswaran is a Senior Partner at McKinsey and Company Inc. He obtained his BTech degree in Metallurgical Engineering from IIT Bombay in 1989 and Master’s in Business Management from IIM Ahmedabad.

In his client work, Mangaleswaran supports top management of companies across sectors in shaping strategy, building operational excellence, and strengthening their organisations. He has developed 5-year growth strategies for several major businesses in the civil, infrastructure, concessions, and heavy manufacturing sectors, designed and executed largescale transformation efforts in breakthrough cost reduction and adoption of advanced analytics and digital technologies for performance improvement etc.

He has led multiple projects to assess and help realise the full potential of India’s manufacturing and infrastructure sectors, in collaboration with leading industry associations. He has also led a major McKinsey knowledge initiative on global trends in sourcing manufactured goods from low-cost countries, identifying effective responses for companies in both developed and emerging economies. A key focus of Mangaleshwaran’s work has been on building leadership and talent, often through long-term partnerships with his clients. For example, he helped create a multi-year leadership development program for a major engineering firm to support a strategy of rapid growth. He also designed the organisation structure and talent model for a diversified engineering and infrastructure corporation.

Mangaleswaran actively contributes to non-profit organisations in the field of education. He serves on the boards of the Pratham Education Foundation and the Pratham Skills Institute, amongst India’s largest NGOs. He is also actively involved in multiple higher education institutes, including the IIMA Endowment Fund and Krea University.

Mangaleswaran was awarded “ET Prime Givers 2014” (list of philanthropists in India) and by Business Today in the “25 young leaders under 40” category in 2008.

A recipient of the Prof. I Ramabrahmam Gold Medal for Best PhD Thesis in Political Science from the University of Hyderabad, Dr Krishnan’s doctoral research examined Homelessness, Judicial Response, and the Politics of Exclusion in Mumbai (1980–2020). Her academic journey has been marked by several prestigious international awards and fellowships, including the German Chancellors’ Fellowship for Prospective World Leaders (Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, Germany), the Dr. Pavate Memorial Fellowship at the University of Cambridge, UK and the Erasmus+ Exchange Fellowship at Freie Universität Berlin.

As the Founding Director of Beejvan Biodiversity and Collaborative Research Foundation, she has led award-winning projects on sustainability and biocultural regeneration, supported by organisations such as Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), Germany, Lush Spring Prize (UK), and Ethical Consumer (UK). Her work connects field-based research with policy engagement and community action to strengthen the link between justice, ecology, and governance.

Dr Krishnan has previously taught at Indian Institute of Management Bangalore, IIM Sirmaur, TU Berlin, where she has offered courses in Critical Thinking, Leadership Communication, and Qualitative Research Methods. Her pedagogy emphasises reflection, and experiential learning, nurturing students’ capacity to think critically and act with care in complex contexts.

Dr Sanjay Chikermane is an Assistant professor at IIT Roorkee. He is an expert in structural damage detection and has, in his long career, worked extensively on the health monitoring of historic bridges. He received his BTech and PhD degrees from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay.

Shatavisha Mustafi, Visiting Assistant Professor at Nayanta, is an art historian whose research engages with modernisms in visual culture and art market studies. Her work examines how artistic value, institutional histories, and cultural narratives overlap to shape the idea of the modern in South Asia and beyond.

She was a Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Fellow at the Department of History, Theory and Criticism of Architecture and Art, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where she pursued research on the formation of aesthetic discourses in postcolonial artworlds. Shatavisha holds an undergraduate degree in Comparative Literature from Jadavpur University, and a Master’s and M.Phil in Visual Studies from the School of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University.

Her scholarship has been recognised by the Indian Council of Social Science Research, the Ministry of Education, Government of India, the Godrej Culture Lab, the Nehru Trust Fellowship, and the Getty Foundation, among others.

Shatavisha has curated exhibitions and taught undergraduate courses in visual culture. Her teaching and writing continue to reflect an interest in the shifting relationship between modernisms, markets, and institutional infrastructures in the arts.

Dr Srinivas Reddy will be teaching World Music, Literature and Arts to the founding undergraduate class. A truly multidisciplinary scholar, translator, and classical sitarist, Dr Reddy brings a unique blend of academic and artistic excellence that will enrich our founding class.

His career reflects a deep commitment to South Asian culture and history. Dr Reddy received a BA in South Asian Studies from Brown University and a PhD in South and Southeast Asian Studies from the University of California, Berkeley, where he studied Sanskrit, Tamil, and Telugu literary traditions. His thesis on the Vijayanagara emperor Krishnadevaraya and his Telugu epic Amuktamalyada led to his first publication, Giver of the Worn Garland (Penguin 2010). Since then, he has published several articles in reputed journals and four more books, including the critically acclaimed Raya: Krishnadevaraya of Vijayanagara (Juggernaut 2020) and Illuminating Worlds: An Anthology of Classical Indian Literature (Bloomsbury 2024).

Beyond his scholarly pursuits, Dr Reddy is a professional concert sitarist who has given numerous recitals in the US, India, and Europe. He trained in the traditional guru-shishya parampara with Pandit Partha Chatterjee, a direct disciple of the late sitar maestro Pandit Nikhil Banerjee. He has three albums to his credit: GITA (1999), Sitar & Tabla (2001), and Hemant & Jog (2008).

Prior to joining Nayanta, Dr Reddy taught at esteemed institutions which include Brown University, IIT Gandhinagar, and UMass Dartmouth. In 2024, he was awarded a Fulbright-Nehru fellowship during which he researched ancient Indian mathematics.

Susan Thomas has studied at IIT Bombay and the University of Southern California. She has been a faculty at Indira Gandhi Institute for Development Research. Her research lies in the areas of finance, markets, and the economy. She has worked in the design of the NSE-50 (“Nifty”) index and the risk management systems of the Indian equity derivatives markets.

Her policy engagements with the Ministry of Finance included being a member of the Standing Council of the competitiveness of the Indian Financial Sector (2013), and the Bankruptcy Legislative Reforms Committee (2014). She led the research team that designed and drafted the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (2016) and worked with the Ministry of Corporate Affairs on the organisational structure of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India and the National Companies Law Tribunal.